EX    LIBRIS 

THE    UNIVERSITY 

OF    CALIFORNIA 


FROM  THE  FUND 

ESTABLISHED  AT  YALE 

IN  1927  BY 

WILLIAM  H.  CROCKER 

OF  THE  CLASS  OF  1882 

SHEFFIELD  SCIENTIFIC  SCHOOL 

YALE  UNIVERSITY 


THE  PULPIT  AND  THE  PEW 


The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 


Lyman  Beecher  Lectures  delivered  191S,  before 
THE  Divinity  School  of  Yale  University 


By 

CHARLES  H.   PARKHURST 

D.D.,LL.D. 


NEW  HAVEN,  CONNECTICUT 

YALE    UNIVERSITY    PRESS 

MCMXIII 


•;  c 


BV^oi  0 


(F^ 


^y^  ^  (T^uJIm^ 


Copyright,  1913,  by 
Yale  University  Press 


First  printed  July,  1913.    750  copies 


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*  '   c  *  *  ^   ' 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I.     The  Preacher  and  his  Qualifications            .  1 

11.      Pulpit  Aims 24 

III.     The  Pulpit's  Estimate  of  the  Pew    .           .  48 
IV.     Love  Considered  as  a  Dynamic         .           .  72 
V.     Ministerial   Responsibility   for   Civic  Con- 
ditions     .....'  95 
VI.     Responsibility  of  the  Church  to  the  Life  of 

the  Town           .....  118 

VII.     Dealing  with  the  Fundamentals        .           .  145 

VIII.     The  Sanctuary  and  Sanctuary  Service       .  171 


6465C8 


THE  PULPIT  AND  THE  PEW 


THE  PREACHER  AND  HIS  QUALTFIC AXIOM  S;  ;' 


Every  man  is  the  measure  of  his  work  and  the 
measure  of  his  word.  He  cannot  do  a  work  that  out- 
measures  his  own  proportions,  nor  speak  an  effective 
word  that  is  more  eloquent  than  liis  own  personahty. 
Upon  whatever  line  of  service  therefore  a  man  enters, 
the  prime  question  turns  on  stature. 

If  we  are  to  understand  by  St.  Paul's  statement  in 
First  Corintliians  1 :  27, — "God  hath  chosen  the  weak 
things  of  the  world  to  confound  the  things  that  are 
mighty," — that  God's  preference  is  for  feeble  instru- 
ments, the  Apostle  is  himself  the  refutation  of  what 
he  asserts.  Other  things  being  equal,  the  rich  soil 
will  yield  the  finer  fruit ;  the  larger  star  will  radiate 
the  fuller  light ;  the  tougher  log  will  emit  the  tenser 
heat.  It  has  to  be  enkindled,  of  course,  but  once 
aflame  the  toughness  of  its  fiber  will  determine  the 
quantity  and  quality  of  its  blaze. 

It  seems  to  have  been  sometimes  thought — follow- 
ing perhaps  what  was  imagined  to  be  the  leading  of 
the  passage  just  quoted — that  while  success  in  other 
departments  of  service  depends  on  wealth  of  qualifi- 
cation,   success    in    the    pulpit   is    conditional    upon 


>  »  >  > 
i  1  ■>    1 


2  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

absence  of  aptitude,  and  that  the  weakest  and  most 

unpromising  of  the  sons  is  thereby  marked  out  for 

...  pa^nisterial  candidature. 
.  I .   '         ".,■::■■ 
•  '•'  Some  years  ago  I  was  called  upon  by  the  widow  of 

.*/.  I '.  ^  i'H^P'.i^resbyterian  elder,  who  was  for  some  years 
officially  connected  with  one  of  the  most  prominent 
Presbyterian  churches  in  New  York  City,  a  motherly 
old  lady,  who  descanted  with  affectionate  detail  upon 
the  membersliip  of  her  home,  and  in  particular  upon 
her  three  sons,  whom  we  will  call  Charles,  James  and 
Henry.  Charles  she  described  as  especially  gifted, 
both  in  physique  and  in  rigor  of  intellectual  and 
moral  character.  Him,  she  said,  she  had  devoted  to 
the  law.  Her  second  son,  James,  she  represented  to 
me  as  less  complete  in  his  general  build  than  Charles, 
but  surpassing  either  of  her  other  children  in  initia- 
tive and  acuteness,  and  liim  she  had  decided  to  put 
into  business.  The  case  of  Henry  she  briefly  disposed 
of  by  laconically  remarking  that  she  had  given  him 
to  the  Lord,  absent-mindedly  remarking,  however,  a 
Uttle  later  in  the  conversation,  that  he  was  in  no  wise 
a  promising  child  and  that  she  was  quite  doubtful 
whether  she  would  succeed  in  raising  him.  She  was 
probably  familiar  with  those  passages  of  Old  Testa- 
ment Scripture  that  insist  that  only  those  animals 
that  are  unblemished  and  that  are  the  finest  shall  be 
placed   upon    the    altar    of   the   Lord,    but   without 


The  Preacher  and  His  Qualifications        3 

realizing,  apparently,  that  blemished  children  are  as 
far  from  measuring  up  to  the  sacrificial  ideal  as  are 
blemished  goats  and  lambs. 

Passing  by  the  entire  question  of  physical  equip- 
ment, as  being  too  familiar  to  require  rehearsal,  we 
shall  give  primary  attention  to  the  matter  of  disci- 
plined mentahty,  as  the  fundamental  prerequisite  to 
ministerial  success.  This  is  not  with  any  view  to 
showing  disrespect  to  our  candidates'  moral  and  reli- 
gious faculties,  to  which,  by  many  and  by  most, 
perhaps,  would  be  accorded  the  position  of  prece- 
dence. 

Those  faculties  shall  have  due  recognition;  but 
however  complete  the  moralization  and  the  sanctifi- 
cation  of  the  individual,  their  practical  value  and 
efficiency  will  depend  upon  the  amount  of  the  per- 
sonal stuff  to  wliich  they  are  respectively  apphed. 
The  quality  of  the  light  in  a  sixteen-power  electric 
candle  is  the  same  as  in  that  of  one  of  tliirty-two 
power,  but  the  latter  will  do  more  work  and  illumi- 
nate a  wider  area.  And  what  we  are  after  here  is 
the  largest  possible  results.  The  quality  of  the  piety 
of  a  man  of  mediocre  intelhgence  may  be  on  a  par 
with  that  of  Luther,  Calvin,  Chalmers,  Storrs,  but 
its  practical  worth  as  an  efficiency  will  be  calculated 
only  in  terms  of  the  results  to  which  the  piety  con- 
tributes.    And  it  is  of  results  that  we  are  here  in 


4  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

pursuit.  And  truth,  intellectually  discerned,  appro- 
priated and  experienced,  is  the  ultimate  material  out 
of  which  personal  stuff  is  built  up.  Other  ingredients 
certainly  enter  into  the  composition,  just  as  some- 
thins-  beside  bricks  is  essential  to  the  construction  of 
a  brick  building,  although  it  is  bricks  that  are  the 
constituent  elements. 

So  we  come  back  to  it  that  it  is  by  a  process  of 
thorough  intellectual  studentship  that  the  foundation 
of  ministerial  efficiency  is  laid.  In  other  words  we 
are  dealing  with  the  same  conditions  here  as  when, 
instead  of  its  being  the  case  of  a  preacher,  it  is  that 
of  a  lawyer  or  physician  or  of  any  other  worker  upon 
high  personal  grounds.  In  this  case,  as  in  all  others, 
things  being  equal,  it  is  intellectual  strength  and  rich 
intellectual  furnishings  of  the  mind  that  are  the 
measure  of  power.  In  keeping  with  the  foregoing  it 
is  in  point  to  suggest  that  it  is  quite  to  the  advan- 
tage of  one  who  is  to  eventuate  as  a  preacher  that 
he  does  not  too  early  conceive  a  definite  ministerial 
purpose.  Some  one  ha^dng  remarked  that  a  youth 
who  had  arrived  at  the  age  of  seventeen  without 
having  yet  distinctly  fixed  upon  his  life  work  was  a 
failure  already,  Mr.  Beecher  is  reported  to  have 
retorted  that  any  one  at  the  age  of  seventeen  who 
had  distinctly  fixed  upon  his  life  work  was  a  failure 
already. 


The  Preacher  and  His  Qualifications        5 

Very  much  of  what  has  to  be  reckoned  as  unsuccess 
in  all  departments  is  due  to  meagerness  of  prepara- 
tory discipline — instabiUty  and  contractedness  in 
the  fundamentals.  It  is  an  omen  of  good  that  the 
church  is  giving  to  this  matter  more  and  more  care- 
ful regard.  A  man  cannot  do  a  thing  well  unless 
he  is  able  to  do  something  more  than  the  one  par- 
ticular thing  that  he  is  specifically  devoting  himself 
to. 

A  speaker,  for  example,  leaves  upon  our  minds  a 
dissatisfied  impression  if  we  are  left  suspecting  that 
his  effort  is  one  in  which  he  has  exhausted  his  entire 
range  of  resource.  We  want  to  be  able  to  keep  our- 
selves well  inside  of  our  limitations.  When  I  was  a 
boy  and  wanted  to  go  skating  my  father  took  pains 
to  be  sure  that  the  ice  was  a  little  thicker  than  was 
absolutely  necessary  to  keep  me  from  falhng  through 
into  the  water. 

Moses  had  already  passed  two  thirds  of  his  life 
before  finally  entering  upon  his  mission.  If  the  tra- 
ditional view  of  the  matter  is  correct,  only  ten  per 
cent  of  our  Lord's  years  were  devoted  to  the  Chris- 
tian ministry;  and,  humanly  viewed,  if  any  one  ever 
had  reason  to  be  in  haste  to  get  at  his  life  work  that 
one  was  he.  If  there  were  more  of  the  same  in  the 
programme   of  men   now   entering   the   ministry,   it 


6  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

would  save  plucking  from  the  tree  fruit  while  it  is 
still  green. 

There  is  no  place  where  haste  to  be  doing  what  one 
is  going  to  spend  liis  life  in  doing  is  more  disastrous 
than  the  pulpit.  That  cases  can  still  be  cited  where 
matters  issued  otherwise  does  not  vitiate  the  prin- 
ciple for  which  we  are  just  now  contending.  There 
is  no  vigor  of  mind  that  can  be  operated  along  any 
line  of  thought,  that  cannot  be  made  to  tell  in  the 
service  of  the  pulpit.  There  is  no  sort  of  knowledge, 
whether  of  things  celestial  or  terrestrial,  of  things 
divine  or  human,  that  cannot  be  utilized  to  the  effec- 
tiveness of  pulpit  discourse.  No  sensible  person  ever 
commences  preacliing  without  wishing  that  under- 
neath his  effort  were  a  wider  and  more  solid  basis  of 
preparation. 

There  is  no  doubt  but  that  the  intellectualism 
involved  in  such  preparation  has  its  perils.  Study 
easily  becomes  an  end  in  itself.  Students  possessed 
of  the  spirit  of  research  incur  the  danger  of  coming 
to  seek  knowledge  for  its  own  sake,  regardless  of  the 
uses  to  which  it  may  be  put  and  ought  to  be  put.  It 
is  much  the  same  impulse,  only  working  at  a  higher 
level,  as  prompts  the  money-getter,  who  earns  for  the 
joy  of  earning  and  for  the  joy  he  finds  in  his  accu- 
mulations. There  is  in  it  much  of  the  genius  of 
miserliness,    although    working    in    an    immaterial 


The  Preacher  and  His  Qualifications        7 

commodity.  But  the  nature  of  the  commodity  does 
not  seriously  modify  the  quality  of  the  impulse.  To 
be  greedy  of  gold  is  no  better  than  to  be  greedy  of 
copper  or  brass. 

I  know  of  a  theological  seminary  where,  since  the 
establishment  of  a  fellowship  entitling  the  first 
scholar  in  the  class  to  two  years  of  study  abroad, 
almost  every  fellow  has  finally  issued  as  a  professor 
rather  than  as  a  preacher.  That  is  a  matter  that  in 
this  presence  needs  to  be  touched  with  great  delicacy, 
for  it  is  one  of  those  questions  upon  wliich  much  can 
be  said  on  either  side.  It  can  be  easily  claimed  that 
to  make  preachers  in  the  classroom  is  greater  than 
to  make  Christians  in  the  pulpit. 

If  it  be  said  that  it  would  have  been  impossible  to 
tie  St.  Paul  down  to  a  seminary,  it  has  also  to  be  said 
that  Christ  confined  himself  for  the  most  part  to 
making  preachers,  apostles.  I  mention  both  points 
of  view,  for  I  am  not  speaking  as  an  advocate,  nor 
trying  to  win  a  case.  Yet  I  believe,  if  the  entire 
truth  be  told  in  the  instance  just  mentioned,  that  it 
was  the  scholarly  impulse,  fostered  by  prolonged 
years  of  study,  rather  tlian  the  pure  evangelical 
passion  that  prompted  the  fellows  to  qualify  them- 
selves for  professional  work. 

That  is  the  natural  tendency  of  study.  There  is 
an  element  of  dryness  in  pure  intellectual  work  which 


8  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

easily  diverts  from  service  of  warm  personal  endeavor 
except  as  it  is  continually  moistened  by  influences  of 
quite  a  distinct  character.  I  recall  the  case  of  a  man 
who  had  spent  two  years  fitting  for  college,  four 
years  in  college,  three  years  in  a  chair  of  Greek,  two 
years  in  study  abroad,  who  upon  returning  to  tliis 
country  and  consulting  with  a  wise  and  trusted  col- 
lege professor  as  to  the  field  of  service  in  wliich  he 
would  best  expend  liimself,  received  from  him  the 
unhesitating  advice  to  devote  a  year  or  two  to 
preacliing  the  gospel,  not  with  a  view  to  remaining 
permanently  in  the  ministry,  but  for  the  purpose  of 
cultivating  that  aff'ectional  side  of  the  nature  which 
is  certain  to  be  neglected  in  strictly  intellectual  pur- 
suits and  which  is  essential  to  the  balancing  of 
character,  and  without  which  mere  intellectual  dis- 
cipline is  sure  to  fail  of  its  finest  and  most  valuable 
fruits. 

The  emotive  faculty  is  so  distinctly  a  feature  of 
the  human  constitution  that  the  wonder  is  that  so 
little — even  if  any — respect  is  accorded  to  it,  or 
emphasis  paid  upon  it,  in  collegiate  training,  or,  so 
far  as  I  know,  in  the  discipline  of  the  seminary, 
although  as  regards  the  latter  I  am  subject  to  cor- 
rection. Of  course,  in  the  study  of  psychology  the 
feelings  are  charted  as  combining  with  the  intellect 
and  the  will  to  make  out  the  complete  geography  of 


The  Preacher  and  His  Qualifications        9 

the  mind,  exactly  as  Connecticut  is  scheduled  with 
the  five  states  to  compose  New  England;  but  wliile 
the  coUese  curriculum  is  constructed  with  a  definite 
view  to  building  up  the  student  on  his  intellectual 
side,  I  do  not  recall  in  my  four  years'  submission  to 
that  curriculum  a  single  suggestion  as  to  the  serious 
part  played  in  hfe  and  in  service  by  the  emotive 
energies  or  to  the  necessity  of  developing  them  in 
parallelism  with  the  cultivation  of  the  powers  of 
thought. 

This  matter  will  call  for  fuller  treatment  in  another 
lecture,  but  could  not  be  left  without  mention  in  our 
inventory  of  ministerial  qualifications.  Presumabl}^ 
my  point  of  view  upon  entering  into  the  work  of  the 
ministry  was  not  markedly  different  from  that  of 
most  inexperienced  preachers,  in  supposing  that  men 
could  be  syllogized  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven ;  that 
they  could  be  snared  in  a  sort  of  logical  trap  and 
transported  at  the  impulse  of  an  inevitable  conriction. 

One  lesson  that  a  theologue  ought  thoroughly  to 
have  learned  prior  to  ordination  is  that  while  people 
have  convictions  they  are  not  very  much  given  to 
making  use  of  them,  and  treat  them — especially 
moral  and  religious  ones — very  much  as  they  do 
bric-a-brac,  which  is  designed  rather  for  decoration 
than  for  consumption. 

So  that  logically  to  have  fastened  a  truth  upon  a 


10  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

hearer's  mind  is  no  slightest  guarantee  of  practical 
religious  results.  Iron  cannot  be  hammered  into 
shape  when  it  is  cold.  Between  frigid  thought  and 
sentiment  that  is  gentle  and  tender,  considered  as 
moral  dynamic,  there  is  the  same  difference  as  between 
hailstones  and  raindrops  viewed  as  means  of  fertih- 
zation. 

It  was  my  great  privilege  to  know  and  to  love  the 
late  Richard  Salter  Storrs.  He  has  now  been  a  long 
time  gone,  but  my  admiration  for  him  as  the  prince 
of  preachers  grows  with  the  years.  A  distinctly  new 
quality  entered  into  liis  discourses  as  time  passed,  as 
has  been  testified  to  by  those  who  were  his  accustomed 
hearers. 

His  earlier  sermons  were  rather  in  the  nature  of 
addresses,  evidencing  the  thoroughness  of  liis  scholar- 
ship and  distinguished  for  their  massive  elegance,  for 
the  wealth  of  their  diction  and  for  the  masterly  way 
in  which  his  thoughts  were  marshaled.  So  that  the 
responsive  hearer — and  all  his  hearers  were  respon- 
sive— retired  from  his  pulpit  service  overwhelmed  and 
sometimes  well-nigh  crushed  by  the  staggering  blows 
of  his  eloquence.  And  yet  its  splendor  was  rather 
the  cold  brilliancy  of  an  icicle  than  the  warm  caress- 
ing flush  of  a  summer  sunset. 

But  as  time  passed  over  him,  with  that  accompani- 
ment of  burden  and  bereavement  that  are  the  sure 


The  Preacher  and  His  Qualifications      11 

attendants  of  the  years,  and  with  that  mellowing 
influence,  which,  under  such  circumstance  is  certain 
to  visit  a  soul  as  gifted  and  capacious  as  his,  there 
entered  a  new  note  into  the  music  of  his  discourse,  a 
note  that  was  soft  and  sweet,  and  one  which,  without 
trespassing  upon  the  vigor  of  his  thought,  endowed 
it  with  the  subtle  poAver  of  gracious  penetration,  so 
that  his  words  fell  upon  us  with  a  certain  majestic 
sweetness,  that  not  simply  touched  our  understand- 
ings but  melted  their  way  into  our  hearts. 

There  was  a  lesson,  in  pulpit  service  of  that  com- 
plex efficiency,  which  was  bound  to  remain  as  a 
permanent  possession  of  all  who  had  the  privilege, 
even  though  limitedly  enjoyed,  of  coming  within 
reach  of  its  pecuhar  inspiration  of  commingled  might 
and  graciousness.  The  thought  was  there  and  the 
feeling  was  there,  and  yet  married,  each  to  each,  in 
a  way  that  created  the  consciousness  of  unity  rather 
than  of  duality.  It  was  a  vitalized  summary  of  the 
two  ministerial  qualifications  thus  far  specified.  Even 
as  in  the  preaching  of  Christ,  of  St.  Paul  and  of  St. 
John,  there  were  tears  in  his  utterance  even  if  not 
in  his  eye. 

This  is  no  plea  for  sentimentahty,  which  is  simply 
sentiment  run  riot,  undisciplined  hysteria,  emotional- 
ism gathered  about  no  fixed  intelligent  point  of 
crystallization.     It  is  a  demand  rather  for  a  culti- 


12  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

vated  and  developed  faculty  of  affection  wliich  shall 
be  an  easy  match  for  a  cultivated  and  developed 
faculty  of  thought,  so  that,  while  the  action  of  the 
brain  shall  give  support  to  the  play  of  the  heart,  the 
play  of  the  heart  shall  add  luster  and  warmth  to  the 
action  of  the  brain. 

It  having  been  indicated  that  it  is  one's  person- 
ality that  constitutes  the  foundation  of  one's  fitness 
for  ministerial  service,  it  is  a  question  of  some  diffi- 
culty and  delicacy,  requiring  always  to  be  solved, 
whether  there  exist  those  constitutional  aptitudes  that 
put  one  into  natural  relation  with  work  of  that  order. 

It  should  be  laid  down  as  a  fundamental  principle, 
applicable  to  all  occupations,  that  the  sanctity  of  a 
man's  work  does  not  depend  on  the  nature  of  the  work 
but  on  the  character  of  the  impulse  inspiring  it,  and 
that  all  work  is  holy  when  done  with  a  hallowed  intent, 
done  in  loyal  service  to  a  Divine  Master;  so  that 
different  lines  of  engagement,  if  pursued  in  that 
spirit,  are  not  to  be  classified  into  grades  of  unequal 
religious  value. 

A  Christian  broker,  lawyer,  manufacturer,  who 
conducts  his  business  in  loyal  observance  of  Christian 
principle,  stands,  in  point  of  character  and  service, 
at  the  same  level  of  sanctity  as  the  clergyman,  priest, 
evangelist  or  apostle  possessed  of  the  same  consecra- 
tion of  purpose.    The  ideal  Christian  life  is  the  same 


The  Preachee  and  His  Qualifications      13 

for  all.  Tliis  truth  if  more  distinctly  impressed  and 
emphaticalh'  urged  would  correct  the  notion  that 
often  lies  in  the  minds  of  even  Christian  3'oung  men, 
when  considering  the  question  of  vocation,  that  a 
lower  degree  of  devotion  is  compatible  with  the  Chris- 
tian practice  of  the  profession  of  law  or  of  medicine 
or  of  any  other  secular  pursuit,  so  called,  than  with 
that  of  the  ministry ;  which  means,  of  course,  that  it 
is  a  httle  more  wicked  for  a  minister  to  do  what  is 
not  quite  right  than  it  is  for  a  layman,  and  that  it  is 
prudent  to  work  in  a  field  where  there  is  the  broadest 
moral  margin. 

With  the  understanding  then  that  all  functions  are 
holy  functions  if  christianly  exercised,  and  that  in 
itself  the  calling  of  one  who  pleads  before  the  bar  is 
as  holy  a  calling  as  that  of  one  who  preaches  from  the 
pulpit,  we  come  back  naturally  to  the  proposition, 
stated  a  moment  ago,  that  the  question  of  one's  life 
work  is  to  be  settled  on  the  basis  of  constitutional 
aptitude,  and  that  the  Christian  young  man  is  under 
no  kind  of  obUgation  to  enter  the  ministry  and  ought 
not  to  enter  the  ministry,  on  the  mere  ground  that  he 
is  a  Christian,  but  on  the  ground  that,  added  to  that, 
he  is  by  nature  adapted  to  that  character  of  ser\'ice, 
if  so  be  that  he  is  so  adapted. 

We  never  do  well  that  which  we  do  not  en j  oy  doing, 
that  toward  which  our  faculties  of  thought,  feeling 


14  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

and  temperament  do  not  converge  with  unanimity  of 
assent.  Success  in  the  best  sense  of  the  term  and  in 
the  higher  Hnes  of  achievement,  is  unattainable,  if, 
while  certain  of  our  powers  throw  themselves  into 
effort  with  glad  spontaneity,  other  of  those  powers 
stand  by  in  frowning  dissent.  A  man  in  order  to  do 
perfectly  well  must  be  unanimous.  Such  unanimity 
makes  out  a  great  deal  of  what  is  usually  understood 
to  be  genius.  Genius  is  energy  at  play.  Energy  at 
work  is  something  else. 

It  would  be  of  interest  to  know  what  percentage  of 
those  who  preach  are  doing  it  because  it  is  the  thing 
they  love  to  do  and  the  only  thing  they  want  to  do, 
or  because  they  think  it  is  the  thing  that  they  can 
do  with  least  likelihood  of  failure.  An  acquaintance 
of  mine  said  on  a  Saturday,  "I  am  going  to  preach 
tomorrow,  but  if  my  late  uncle's  will,  which  is  to  be 
opened  the  coming  week,  reads  as  I  think  it  does,  the 
sermon  that  I  preach  tomorrow  is  the  last  one  I  shall 
ever  deliver."  The  instance  is  probably  an  unusual 
one,  but  how  unusual  no  one  can  say,  for  scarcely 
would  any  one  be  so  insensible  to  the  significance  of 
the  ministry  and  to  its  splendid  opportunities  of 
service  as  to  be  willing  to  confess  that  he  availed  of 
it  merely  as  a  bread-and-butter  occupation. 

It  is  through  this  medium  of  aptitude  that  Gods 
purpose  respecting  us  becomes  known  to  us.     It  is  in 


The  Preacher  and  His  Qualifications      15 

that  way  primarily  that  his  call  reaches  us,  whether 
it  be  a  call  to  the  Christian  ministry  or  to  some  other 
department  of  service.  The  word  "calling"  implies  in 
itself  a  personal  summons, — a  fact  of  which  we  are 
unmindful  when  we  use  the  term  of  occupation  in  gen- 
eral but  associate  the  idea  of  God's  purpose,  and 
God's  communication  to  us  of  his  purpose,  only  with 
the  work  of  the  ministry. 

We  seem  willing  to  pauperize  other  occupations  in 
respect  of  their  religious  possibilities  in  order  to 
secure  funds  for  capitalizing  the  single  profession  of 
the  preacher.  Our  religious  appreciation  lacks  sub- 
stance sufficient  to  cover  the  entire  area,  somewhat 
after  the  manner  of  the  people  in  the  Old  Testament 
record  with  whom  "God  was  the  God  of  the  hills  but 
not  the  God  of  the  valleys."  According  to  the  testi- 
mony of  the  thirty-sixth  of  Exodus,  the  merely  me- 
chanical and  artistic  skill  of  Bezaleel  and  Aholiab 
were  inwrought  with  the  same  divine  spirit  as  were 
the  ministration  of  the  priest  that  afterwards  offici- 
ated in  the  tabernacle  which  those  two  holy  arcliitects 
contributed  to  construct.  The}"^  were  prepared  to 
serve  the  Lord,  and  their  natural  equipment  pointed 
out  to  them  the  path  along  which  their  service  should 
be  rendered,  and  their  office  became  a  holy  office, 
because,  although  material  in  its  form,  it  was  devoutly 
ministerial  in  its  spirit  and  purpose. 


16  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

Aptitude  considered  as  means  by  wliich  God  makes 
known  his  will  respecting  us  need  not  exclude  other 
means  of  a  more  apparently  supernatural  character; 
but  to  one  who  thoroughly  acknowleges  the  doctrine 
of  the  divine  immanence  the  difference  between  natural 
and  supernatural  is  a  difference  only  in  point  of  view. 
The  twofold  term  is  rather  in  the  interest  of  mental 
convenience  than  of  exact  truth.  Nature  becomes 
identified  with  super-nature  and  vice  versa  to  the 
mind  that  is  comprehensive  enough  to  view  realities 
disrobed  of  their  appearances. 

So  that  whether  God  communicates  to  me  his 
thought  concerning  me,  and  his  purpose  respecting 
me,  through  the  counsel  of  a  friend,  through  the 
shaping  of  circumstances,  or  by  a  dream,  a  vision, 
a  burning  bush,  a  great  light,  or  less  startlingly,  but 
more  in  consonance  with  the  usual  method  of  divine 
procedure,  by  the  drawing  of  my  own  temperament 
and  the  peculiar  fitness  natively  inherent  in  me,  my 
calling  in  the  latter  case,  equally  as  in  the  former 
ones,  is  a  calling  from  the  Lord. 

So  considered,  aptitude  becomes  a  matter  of  even 
solemn  seriousness.  Solemn  because  it  is  a  kind  of 
original  divine  ordination ;  solemn  because  absence  of 
aptitude  is  a  disqualification  that  is  so  numerously 
unheeded.  The  church  is  made  poorer  by  every  man 
who  stands  in  the  pulpit  without  having  been  born 


The  Preacher  and  His  Qualifications      17 

into  relations  with  the  pulpit, — ministers  that  are 
such  by  accident ;  that  are  such  at  the  impulse  of  an 
undisciplined  hyper-conscientiousness ;  that  become 
such  by  the  pleading  constraint  of  a  devout  mother ; 
that  are  such  out  of  the  idle  disposition  to  follow  the 
hne  of  least  resistance  and  enter  the  ministry  because 
that  is  a  door  that  opens  to  them  more  easily  than 
any  other  and  with  less  promise  of  unsuccess. 

The  only  other  ministerial  qualification  that  I 
mention  today  connects  itself  with  the  matter  of 
experience.  The  onl}'  truths  that  we  can  preach  with 
effect  are  the  truths  that  we  know,  and  the  only  truths 
that  we  know  are  the  truths  that  we  know  experi- 
mentally, truths  that  have  been  run  in  the  grooves  of 
our  own  tliinking,  saturated  with  the  juices  of  our 
personal  feehng  and  interpreted  to  us  by  the  disci- 
phne  of  our  individual  Hving. 

Neither  ethics  nor  theology  are  matters  that  can 
be  committed  to  memory.  St.  Paul's  Letter  to  the 
Church  in  Galatia  testifies  that  the  Christ  whom  he 
preached  was  not  a  Christ  that  had  become  his  by 
any  process  of  outside  indoctrination,  a  Christ  whose 
lineaments  of  character  had  been  stamped  upon  his 
intelhgence  hj  classroom  delineation,  but  a  Christ 
become  his  by  a  process  of  inward  revelation  ;  original, 
therefore,  not  a  transcript :  an  experience,  not  a 
quotation.      Knowledge   that   is   made    ours    experi- 


18  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

mentally  becomes  an  immovable  factor  in  our  life, 
something  which  we  do  not  have  to  buttress  in  order 
to  the  comfort  of  our  own  thought,  and  something 
that  we  do  not  feel  it  necessary  to  sustain  by  logical 
undergirding  in  commending  it  to  the  acceptance  of 
others.     Christ  never  argued. 

There  are  two  classes  of  convictions,  classes  that 
are  to  be  more  sharply  discriminated  than  usually 
occurs.  One  class  is  of  the  convictions  that  we  hold; 
the  other  is  of  the  convictions  that  hold  us.  Those 
comprised  in  the  first  class  are  matter  simply  of 
intellectual  baggage — baggage,  not  vehicle ;  we  carry 
them,  not  they  us.  Like  common  impedimenta,  we 
label  it  that  we  may  be  sure  that  it  is  ours.  We  check 
it  that  we  may  be  able  to  claim  it  at  the  end  of  the 
route.  Like  other  baggage,  we  lose  it  sometimes, 
and  cling  to  it  that  it  may  not  become  lost. 

It  is  not  an  uncommon  thing  to  hear  people  say 
that  they  are  clinging  to  their  old  religious  convic- 
tions. It  is  hard  work  and  very  pathetic  work.  One 
of  Yale's  distinguished  graduates,  afterwards  the 
pastor  of  a  church  in  Hartford,  tells  the  story  of  the 
way  in  which,  here  in  New  Haven,  his  religious  con- 
victions slipped  away  from  him,  all  but  one,  in  spite 
of  the  tenacity  with  which  he  clung  to  them.  It  is 
a  sad  bit  of  autobiography.  It  occurs  in  an  article 
of  his  entitled  the  "Resolving  of  Doubts."    The  story 


The  Preacher  and  His  Qualifications      19 

is  a  sad  one,  but  most  illuminating  and  cheering  in 
its  issue,  for  the  subtraction  of  a  negative  quantity  is 
substantial  addition. 

But  the  class  of  assurance  that  really  concerns  us, 
and  the  only  one  that  is  practical  in  its  effect,  is  not 
an  act  of  clinging  but  a  state  of  being  clung  to.  So 
understood  the  conviction  that  we  have  of  any  reahty 
is  the  grasp  that  that  reality  has  on  us,  not  the  grasp 
that  we  have  on  it ;  and  if  it  is  a  tremendous  reality  it 
makes  us  titanic, — holds  us  fast  and  moves  us  about 
with  all  its  muscular  intensity,  so  that  its  colossal 
energy  becomes  our  energy  and  we  are  converted  into 
a  kind  of  right  arm,  through  which  that  reality  does 
its  work  and  deals  its  blows. 

I  have  seen  big  boulders,  come  down  from  the  moun- 
tain, held  in  the  jaws  of  a  sliding  glacier,  and  as  the 
glacier  crept  with  an  impalpable  but  colossal  tread,  I 
have  seen  the  boulder — a  vast  but  inert  block  of 
granite — go  scouring  along  the  rock-bank  that  the 
glacier  grazed  against,  and  seen  it  score  itself  on 
that  rock-bank  in  lines  indelible  for  a  thousand  or 
two  thousand  years.  That  is  the  picture  I  have 
before  my  eyes  when  I  talk  or  think  about  conviction. 
There  is  notliing  lethargic  in  the  matter  we  are  on. 
We  are  in  the  region  of  dynamics,  personal,  spiritual 
dynamics. 

The  power  was  not  in  the  boulder.     It  might  have 


20  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

weighed  a  thousand  tons,  and,  so  long  as  there  was 
notliing  but  boulder,  might  have  tarried  up  in  the 
sun-stricken  and  storm-blasted  world  of  the  upper 
Alps  till  by  slow  process  of  disintegration  it  had 
become  dissolved  into  dust  and  been  meaninglessly 
and  productivelessly  transported  by  wind  and  rain, 
waterfall  and  brook,  to  the  lower  valleys.  It  was  the 
enginery  of  the  ice  holding  the  boulder  in  its  jaws 
that  did  the  work  and  that  inscribed  those  geologic 
memoranda  that  some  human  eye  may  be  reading 
ages  upon  ages  after  your  reading  and  mine  has  all 
been  done. 

And,  moreover,  it  was  not  the  immensity  of  the 
boulder  to  which  was  due  the  imperishable  groove  that 
was  plowed  into  rock;  it  might  have  been  merely  a 
pebble,  but  even  so,  once  frozen  into  the  crystalline 
massiveness  of  the  moving  ice-river,  even  then  it  would 
put  its  indestructible  chirography  upon  tablets  of 
stone  as  easily  as  the  pen  held  between  the  thumb  and 
finger  traces  our  autograph  on  blank  paper. 

Once  in  the  region  of  genuine  conviction, — convic- 
tion interpreted  on  its  dynamic  side, — we  are  at  the 
heart  of  a  sphere  of  spiritual  energies,  energies  which 
do  the  world's  work,  energies  that  work  revolutions, 
and  that  perpetually  lift  the  times  out  of  old  slavery 
into  larger  liberty.  For  what  the  boulder  or  the 
pebble  is  in  the  maw  of  the  ice-river,  that  a  man  is 


The  Preacher  and  His  Qualifications     21 

when  held  fast  in  the  relentless  embrace  of  sometliing 
that  is  everlastingly  real,  something  that  carries  the 
weight,  the  push,  the  tension  of  the  eternal  and  the 
flavor  of  all  the  ages. 

We  must  remember  that  all  the  way  from  the  sun 
down  to  the  raindrop  nothing  goes  unless  it  is 
carried.  And  the  same  is  true  of  personahty,  even 
though  of  a  gigantic  order.  Things  go  when  they 
are  picked  up  and  carried  and  they  go  tremendously 
only  when  they  are  fastened  upon  by  the  impact  of 
the  great  energies  and  the  tremendous  velocities.  It 
is  getting  on  to  the  windward  side  of  a  great  truth 
and  letting  it  blow  upon  us ;  on  to  the  windward  side 
of  a  great  man  and  letting  him  breathe  upon  us ;  on 
to  the  windward  side  of  the  great  Christ  and  letting 
the  celestial  afflatus  carry  us  upon  its  own  silent  but 
stately  current,  that  converts  us  from  a  mere  splendid 
possibility  into  a  half-divine  reality,  making  men 
heroes  and  able  to  do  the  work  of  heroes,  mak- 
ing them  prophets  and  able  to  speak  the  word  of 
prophets. 

It  is  no  less  an  idea  than  that,  then,  that  we  want 
to  understand  by  experience,  a  comactlon  of  reality 
that  is  nothing  other  than  a  realization  of  reality; 
truth,  objectively  considered,  becomes  a  subjective 
possession.  Years  ago,  here  in  New  England  we 
used,  more  frequently  than  now,  to  hear  men  speak 


22  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

of  experiencing  religion.  Experienced  religion  is  the 
onl}^  religion  there  is,  and  certainly  it  is  the  only 
religion  that  makes  out  the  proper  content  of 
preaching. 

We  have  to  preach  the  truth  as  we  know  it.  If 
our  deliverances  are  genuine  they  will  therefore  carry 
not  only  the  complexion  but  the  flavor  of  our  indi- 
vidual personality.  We  are  not  phonograplis  nor 
dictagraphs,  to  give  forth  in  stupid  mechanical  repe- 
tition what  has  been  told  into  us.  Christ  says  of 
himself  not  simply  that  he  told  the  truth,  but  that  he 
was  the  tinith.  Personality  is  what  counts,  and  truth 
is  made  available  by  becoming  indistinguishably 
absorbed  in  personality.  Incarnation  lies  at  the  basis 
of  influence,  is  the  secret  of  influence.  Truth  is  not 
Uve  truth,  and  able  therefore  to  do  live  work,  till  it  is 
taken  up  into  personality.  The  parts  of  the  Bible 
that  are  the  effective  parts  are  consequently  the  por- 
tions that  are  biographical. 

The  men  and  women  of  the  Bible  are  so  many 
separate  and  original  truths  going  about  in  clothing 
of  flesh  and  blood  and  set  talking  to  us  and  person- 
ally setting  forth  truths  before  our  ej^es  and  ears  in 
a  dramatic  way.  Truth  by  that  means  acquires 
breath  and  pulse,  intellect  and  heart,  and  therefore 
reenforces   our   respiration,   stimulates   thought   and 


The  Preachek  and  His  Qualifications      23 

quickens  heart-throbs.  The  impersonal  does  not 
count. 

In  that  sense  of  the  term,  when  we  preach  we  have 
to  preach  ourselves  or  it  is  not  preaching  but  lectur- 
ing, and  lecturing  to  a  congregation  never  changes 
the  congregation.  It  may  illuminate  it,  but  illumi- 
nation is  like  winter  sunshine,  which  brightens  tilings 
but  cannot  make  them  grow. 

In  keeping  with  that  it  occurs  to  me  to  define 
inspiration  as  the  overflowing  of  a  soul  that  God  has 
filled.  To  insist  upon  the  doctrine  of  verbal  inspira- 
tion, or  upon  any  doctrine  that  approaches  thereto, 
seems  to  me  to  be  quiddling  with  a  reality  that  is  too 
immense  to  deserve  handling  in  any  so  paltry  a  way. 
The  man  who  said  that  phonographs  would  eventu- 
ally^ be  set  up  in  our  pulpits  in  place  of  preachers  had 
probably  sat  under  the  ministration  of  preachers 
who  were  phonographs.  Preaciiing  is  not  the  retail- 
ing of  other  men's  visions.  Inspiration  is  always 
original.  We  are  hke  St.  Paul  in  this  respect,  that 
we  can  truly  preach  only  that  which  has  been  made  to 
be  individually  our  own  by  commerce  with  the  Divine 
Spirit,  with  this  understanding,  however,  that  what 
has  been  divinely  made  over  to  us  has  to  submit  itself 
to  human  hmitations  and  to  go  forth  with  the  form 
that  has  been  impressed  upon  it  by  the  mould  of  our 
individual  eccentricities  of  thought  and  sentiment. 


II 

PULPIT  AIMS 

Lecturing  is  not  preaching.  The  functions  per- 
taining to  the  platform  and  the  pulpit  are  distinct; 
or  if  to  some  degree  they  seem  to  coalesce,  their  pur- 
poses are  distinct.  If  they  do  not  always  appear  so 
it  is  because  the  platform  is  sometimes  removed  from 
the  public  hall  and  set  up  in  a  sanctuary  in  place  of 
the  pulpit  which  has  been  taken  down  and  moved  out. 

Socrates  was  not  satisfied  to  be  a  lecturer;  he 
wanted  to  be  more  than  a  lecturer  and  to  be  a 
preacher.  If  he  had  been  contented  to  be  a  lecturer 
he  would  have  been  allowed  to  live.  But  as  he  insisted 
on  preaching,  the  Athenians  fell  back  from  him  and 
gave  him  hemlock  tea. 

Aristotle  was  not  satisfied  to  be  a  lecturer.  He, 
too,  wanted  to  be  more  than  a  lecturer  and  to  preach. 
If  he  had  been  contented  to  lecture  he  might  have 
remained  at  Athens,  but  as  he  insisted  on  preaching, 
although  he  was  not  executed  as  Socrates  was,  he 
found  it  convenient  to  remove  from  Athens. 

Formerly,  then,  preaching  was  a  dangerous  pro- 
fession.    It  was  sometimes  so  in  old  Hebrew  times. 


Pulpit  Aims  26 

John  the  Baptist  maintained  himself  in  his  pulpit  for 
a  time  with  unabated  popularity,  but  in  one  lucky,  or 
unlucky,  moment,  he  delivered  a  short  discourse  that 
was  rather  more  evidently  and  pointedly  applicable 
than  usual  and  he  lost  not  only  his  pulpit  but  his 
head.  That  might  have  occurred  before  if  the  parish 
to  which  he  preached  had  had  the  same  power  over 
life  and  death  that  was  possessed  by  the  king  who 
executed  him. 

Jesus  Christ  never  lectured.  What  he  said,  so  far 
as  it  has  been  preserved  to  us,  was  distinctly  sermon. 
His  pastorate  lasted  about  three  years.  He  was 
crucified  for  being  a  homiletical  irritation,  nuisance, 
if  you  please.  There  are  ministers  in  New  York  who 
have  stood  in  the  pulpit  ten  times  as  many  years  as 
Christ  preached  in  Judea,  Samaria  and  Galilee,  and 
yet  apparently  without  a  desire  that  they  should  be 
crucified,  except  perhaps  on  the  part  of  a  very 
limited  number. 

Not  long  after,  Stephen,  the  proto-martyr,  was 
stoned.  His  pastorate  was  only  a  brief  one.  So  far 
as  we  are  informed,  he  preached  but  once ;  but  it  was 
preaching.  The  earlier  part  of  the  discourse  was 
rather  after  the  lecture  order — historical,  and  the 
Jews  were  always  fond  of  history,  that  is  to  say  the 
records  of  their  own  people.  The  lecture  portion  had 
continued  for  quite  a  long  time  before  the  hearers 


26  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

began  to  sense  its  drift.  Fifty  verses  out  of  the  fifty- 
six  were  spent  in  lifting  the  hammer  before  bringing 
it  down  on  to  the  nail,  but  when  it  reached  the  nail 
there  was  howling  and  teeth-gnashing,  and  the  only 
reply  they  could  make  was  to  throw  stones  at  him, 
till,  as  the  records  say,  "he  fell  asleep." 

It  is  an  interesting  incident  of  that  same  scene  that 
Saul  was  there,  who  afterwards  became  Paul.  He 
heard  the  sermon;  probably  he  saw  the  hammer,  the 
nail,  the  stones  and  the  death.  Without  that  sermon 
there  might  have  been  no  Paul.  Preaching  that  has 
hammer  and  nails  in  it  and  that  hurts  was,  at  that 
time,  the  kind  of  discourse  that  preachers  preached. 
A  man  who  is  in  a  dead  sleep  cannot  be  awakened  by 
sprinkling  him  with  lavender  water. 

Then  as  to  the  Twelve  Apostles,  tradition  has  it 
that  all  of  them  but  one  died  a  violent  death.  That 
was  because  they  did  not  attempt  to  discharge  their 
apostolic  functions  by  lecturing,  but  by  preaching. 
They  went  about  it  affectionately,  as  did  Stephen. 
No  man  ever  preached  with  a  tenderer,  sweeter  spirit 
than  did  Stephen.  His  last  words  were,  "Lord,  lay 
not  this  sin  to  their  charge,"  gentle  and  forgiring 
even  in  death  agony.  And  yet  he  worked  with 
hammer  and  nail. 

But  to  go  back  a  little,  and  indicate  by  reference 
to    Socrates,   Aristotle    and   others   what   it   is   that 


Pulpit  Aims  2*7 

distinguishes    preacliing    from    lecturing    and    that 
makes  preaching  to  be  preaching. 

Jolm  Stuart  Blackie,  of  the  University  of  Edin- 
burgh, %A'as  setting  forth  the  character  of  Socrates 
as  a  preacher  and  at  the  same  time  indicating  the 
difference  between  that  and  lecturing  when  he  said : 

If  the  speaker  has  a  real  vocation  to  address  his  fellow- 
men  on  moral  subjects,  and  if  he  does  not  dwell  in  vague 
and  trivial  generahties,  sounding  very  pious  on  Sunday, 
but  having  no  distinct  and  recognizable  reference  to  the 
secular  business  of  Monday,  then  a  good  sermon  may  be 
compared  to  a  discharge  of  moral  electricity  which  will 
arouse  many  sleepers,  or  to  the  setting  up  a  sure  finger- 
post which  will  direct  many  wanderers. 

Therein  lay  the  difference  between  Socrates  and 
the  sophists.  The  sophists  talked  for  the  sake  of 
talking;  argued  for  the  sake  of  arguing;  and  when 
they  were  through  arguing  and  talking,  things  were 
just  where  they  were  before,  their  audience  un- 
changed, and  they  themselves  in  no  slightest  danger 
of  crucifixion,  for  nothing  had  occurred  either  to 
stimulate  particularly  the  intelligence  of  their 
hearers  or,  which  is  more  important,  to  touch  or 
irritate  their  consciences. 

The  author  from  whom  I  have  just  quoted  handles 
Aristotle  in  the  same  way,  and  in  the  biographical 


28  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

sketch  which  he  has  prepared  of  liim   includes  the 
following  paragraph: 

Once  and  again  in  the  first  two  books  of  his  treatise 
does  he  repeat  the  solemn  warning  that  our  object  in 
inquiring  into  the  nature  of  virtue  is  not  that  we  may 
know  what  virtue  is,  but  that  we  may  be  virtuous.  Once 
and  again  does  he  enter  a  protest  against  the  tendencies 
of  his  countrymen,  always  ready  to  stand  and  debate 
even  when  the  solution  of  the  problem  was  to  be  found 
only  in  motion  and  action.  Subtleties  of  any  kind  indeed 
are  not  suitable  for  a  moral  discourse.  Ethical  philos- 
ophy refers  as  distinctly  to  a  deed  as  a  sword  refers  to 
a  cut;  and  all  questions  of  morals  are  idle  and  pernicious 
that  do  not  bear  directly  on  some  practical  result. 

We  have  already  spoken  of  the  tone  of  John  the 
Baptist's  address  to  the  throngs  that  gathered  to  his 
preaching  in  the  wilderness.  He  leveled  his  instruc- 
tions to  what  he  knew  to  be  their  need.  He  made  no 
apologies  for  the  directness  of  his  discourse.  There 
was  no  attempt  to  win  them  to  himself,  but  only  to 
point  out  to  them  the  path  of  personal  and  individual 
duty  and  to  insist  on  their  walking  in  it.  His  preach- 
ing was  motived  by  no  disposition  to  make  truth 
acceptable  to  his  hearers  or  duty  easy  for  them. 
Instead  of  abating  the  strenuousness  of  obligation 
and  letting  it  down  to  the  lower  level  of  the  life  they 


Pulpit  Aims  29 

were  leading,  he  aimed  only  to  elevate  them  to  the 
higher  level  of  the  life  they  were  not  leading. 

He  worked  for  results.  There  was  no  dramatic 
representation  of  what  men  in  general  ought  to  be, 
but  an  undecorated  exhibit  of  what  the  men  in  front 
of  liim  ought  to  be.  We  can  depend  upon  it  that 
when  his  hearers  went  back  to  their  respective  busi- 
nesses, they  did  not  go  congratulating  themselves  on 
the  attractive  presentation  of  truth  to  which  it  had 
been  their  great  pleasure  to  Usten. 

Very  likely  it  had  not  been  to  them  altogether  a 
pleasure,  for  what  he  had  dwelt  upon  had  not  been  of 
a  kind  to  appeal  to  their  dramatic  instincts  or  to 
induce  in  them  complacency  and  self-feHcitation.  In 
other  words,  John  the  Baptist  was  a  preacher,  and,  as 
already  intimated,  when  some  time  later  he  pushed 
his  moral  poignard  down  a  little  deeper  into  the  place 
where  the  nerves  lie  so  thick  and  so  sensitive,  the 
victim  of  his  discourse  struck  back  and  he  had  to 
bleed  for  it.  The  blood  he  shed  was  proof  presump- 
tive that  he  preached,  not  lectured. 

All  of  that  which  we  have  been  remarking  of  John 
the  Baptist  is  equally  true,  more  than  equally  true, 
of  the  discourses  of  our  Lord.  We  have  an  idea  that 
there  was  a  certain  gentleness  about  the  way  in  which 
Christ  dealt  -svith  his  audience  that  can  not  be  predi- 
cated of  the  Baptist.    But  even  so,  the  larger  part  of 


30  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

what  is  preserved  to  us  is  very  much  in  the  nature  of 
a  surgical  operation.  His  surgery  was  ordinarily — 
not  always — exceedingly  courteous  and  considerate, 
but  it  was  surgery.  He  stripped  off  the  cuticle  and 
operated  among  the  nerves, — and  that  hurts. 

When  he  said  unto  them,  "Woe  unto  you,  scribes, 
pharisees,  hj^pocrites,"  the  operation  was  not  only  a 
surgical  one,  but  one  that  was  untempered  by  tender- 
ness of  method.  It  is  not  easy  to  understand  exactly 
what  is  meant  by  people  who  expatiate  serenely  and 
comfortably  upon  the  winsomeness  of  the  lessons  that 
are  taught  in  the  gospels  and  the  appeals  that  are 
distributed  through  them. 

Take,  as  an  example,  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount, 
with  its  ominous  conclusion.  The  Decalogue  is  not 
an  approximation  to  it  in  the  severity  of  its  demands. 

The  latter  puts  before  men  an  ideal  of  what  they 
should  do ;  the  former  an  ideal  of  what  they  should 
be.  Anybody  can  do  right  if  he  tries  hard,  but  he 
has  to  try  a  great  deal  harder  in  order  to  be  right. 
We  do  not  have  to  exert  ourselves  in  order  to  abstain 
from  killing  our  neighbor,  but  how  about  loving  that 
neighbor, — not  simply  loving  James,  whom  it  may  be 
easy  to  be  fond  of,  but  loAang  William,  despicable, 
ugly,  dirty  William.'' 

There  is,  to  be  sure,  a  great  deal  of  love  wrought 
into  the  texture  of  the  gospel,  and  so  the  slopes  of  the 


Pulpit  Aims  31 

high  liills  are  covered  with  flowers  of  ineffable  beauty, 
and  one  can  pick  flowers  and  scent  their  fragrance 
without  taking-  account  of  the  blunt  rock  that  lies 
to  immeasurable  depths  underneath. 

Misapprehension  of  the  real  situation  grows  out  of 
this  fact  that  Christ's  law  of  life  has  been  interpreted 
in  a  wa}'  to  exempt  from  the  duty  of  obeying  Christ's 
law.  Those  fiery  bodies  that  we  call  the  fixed  stars 
are  beautiful  when  seen  at  this  distance,  but  the  heat 
that  is  in  them  would  make  it  uncomfortable  to  live 
there.  So  Christ,  viewed  at  the  distance  of  twenty 
centuries,  is  attractive.  We  are  impressed  by  his 
gentleness,  his  loving  kindness,  sympathy  and  patient 
service  rendered  to  all  kinds  of  need  and  destitution. 
But  were  he  to  come  among  us  he  would  be  just  as 
unpopular  as  he  was  twenty  centuries  ago. 

An  ideal  expressed  in  words  is  very  winsome,  but 
an  ideal  dressed  in  flesh  and  standing  at  our  elbow, 
with  its  very  sublimity  uttering  itself  in  silent  denun- 
ciation of  our  own  moral  turpitude  and  spiritual 
paltriness,  would  be  just  what  the  Bible  calls  it,  "a 
consuming  fire."  It  would  be  like  Hving  in  the  hot 
star  Sirius,  so  resplendent  in  its  distant  complexion 
but  so  torrid  when  approached  near  enough  to  become 
a  neighbor.  We  should  become  like  Peter  who  "fell 
down  at  Jesus'  feet  saying.  Depart  from  me  for  I  am 
a  sinful  man." 


32  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

That  was  the  secret  of  Christ's  loneliness  when 
upon  earth.  He  wanted  people,  but  they  did  not  want 
him.  When  it  came  evening,  as  we  are  once  told,  all 
the  people  scattered  to  their  homes.  He  had  no  home, 
and  no  one  cared  to  entertain  him  for  the  night,  and 
so  he  went  forth  and  passed  the  night  among  the  hills 
and  under  the  stars.  He  would  be  treated  here  just 
as  he  was  in  Jerusalem  and  be  called  an  impossible. 
Things  have  not  changed  in  the  course  of  two  thou- 
sand years,  the  great  things,  I  mean,  the  large 
relations. 

Perfect  holiness  is  the  same  as  it  was  in  Jerusalem 
and  sin  is  the  same.  And  the  two  are  as  far  apart. 
And  sin  hates  holiness  as  it  did  at  the  moment  when 
the  nails  were  being  driven  into  Christ's  body  pre- 
paratory to  crucifixion.  I  have  read  that  long 
before  Christ  came  it  was  declared  by  a  certain  Greek 
that  if  perfect  holiness  should  appear  on  earth  it 
would  be  crucified.  Perhaps  that  is  only  a  story.  It 
may  not  be  true.  It  might  be.  They  will  not  come 
to  the  light,  said  Jesus,  because  their  deeds  are  evil. 
It  is  not  so  much  hearing  about  goodness,  having  it 
described,  etc.,  that  is  disquieting.  On  the  contrary, 
it  is  rather  soothing,  caressing.  It  is  only  when  it 
comes  so  close  as  to  be  exacting,  menacing,  that  it 
begins  to  ruffle  us. 

It  is  pleasant  to  sit  before  an  open  wood  fire  and 


Pulpit  Aims  33 

see  the  play  of  the  flames  and  think  long  thoughts 
and  see  visions  in  the  tongues  of  fire,  but  if  the  heat 
begins  to  become  more  than  just  so  intense  we  say 
that  it  is  getting  too  warm  and  we  move  back.  Flame 
is  pretty,  wondrously  fascinating,  till  it  approaches 
contact  with  us,  then  it  is  horrible. 

It  is  strange  that  a  thing  can  be  at  once  so  chanii- 
ing  and  so  repulsive ;  that  Sirius  can  be  so  beautiful 
to  look  upon  at  a  distance  and  so  excruciating  to 
live  in.  It  is  the  weakness  of  the  existing  pulpit  that 
its  portrayal  of  hohness  and  sin  impresses  people 
neither  with  the  beauty  of  the  one  nor  with  the  hate- 
fulness  of  the  other  and  therefore  with  the  contrast 
between  them. 

That  is  why  we  preachers  get  along  so  harmo- 
niously with  our  people.  It  was  a  remark  made  by 
a  former  pastor  of  a  very  prominent  church  in  New 
York  City  that  if  he  preached  the  whole  truth  and 
brought  that  truth  close  to  the  consciences  of  his 
congregation,  he  would  not  be  allowed  to  remain  long 
in  his  pulpit.  That  might  seem  an  exaggerated 
statement.  You  can  have  your  own  opinion  of  it. 
He  has  since  left  that  pulpit  and  is  pursuing  a  course 
of  instruction  less  distinctly  religious. 

Sin  is  not  a  frequent  topic  of  pulpit  discourse. 
Much  less  so  than  formerly.  More  is  done  to  bring 
Christ  down  to  the  level  of  men  than  to  bring  men 


34  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

up  to  the  level  of  Christ.  The  preference  of  people 
is  to  be  let  alone.  No  one  objects  to  having  truth 
dramatized,  but  to  have  truth  preached  is  different; 
that  is,  if  it  is  preached  in  the  spirit  of  the  text,  "If 
ye  know  these  things,  happy  are  ye  if  ye  do  them." 

There  is  willingness  enough  on  the  part  of  people 
to  have  truth  represented  in  a  way  to  stimulate  the 
intellect  and  to  warm  the  heart,  but  not  to  prick  into 
the  conscience.  We  like  as  much  goodness  as  we  have, 
but  do  not  care  for  any  more.  We  are  glad  we  are 
not  as  bad  as  some,  but  are  not  ambitious  to  be 
better  than  we  are.  We  are  more  disposed  to  accept 
Christ  as  one  who  will  save  us  in  our  sins  than  as  one 
who  will  save  us  from  our  sins.  Which  means,  if 
frankly  expressed,  that  Christ  is  mostly  a  super- 
fluity ;  that  it  is  not  literally  true  that  we  need  any 
saving,  that  what  Christianity  substantially  amounts 
to  is  that  it  is  a  divine  arrangement  by  which,  out  of 
the  abundance  of  God's  love  and  consideration  for 
human  fallibility  and  depravity,  and  the  difficulty 
involved  in  getting  rid  of  depravity,  we  can  be 
reckoned  as  good  when  we  are  not. 

And  because  sin  is  dealt  with,  by  the  modern  pulpit, 
with  a  delicate  reserve  not  predicable  of  the  great 
preachers  of  the  Old  Covenant  nor  of  the  great 
Apostles  of  the  New,  there  has  come  to  be  a  corre- 
sponding decline  in  the  emphasis  laid  by  the  pew  upon 


Pulpit  Aims  35 

the  personality  of  Christ  and  his  redemptive  func- 
tion. It  goes  without  the  saying  that  a  sense  of  sin 
and  a  sense  of  moral  helplessness  go  together.  The 
intensity  of  the  one  comes  and  goes  with  the  intensity 
of  the  other.  Only  the  invahd  who  realizes  the 
seriousness  of  his  invalidism  is  moved  to  seek  the 
ministrations  of  a  ph^^sician. 

The  preacher  cannot  exaggerate  the  grandeur  of 
human  nature  as  that  nature  lay  prefigured  in  the 
mind  and  purpose  of  the  Creator,  but  that  grandeur 
in  no  wise  diminishes  or  neutralizes  the  significance  of 
those  antagonistic  energies  of  the  flesh  which, 
strangely  enough,  are  so  easily  able  to  hold  man's 
native  magnificence  in  subjection,  and  make  the  soul 
a  plaything  and  a  slave  of  the  body.  And  till  there 
has  been  begotten  in  the  pew,  under  the  direct  hand- 
hng  of  the  situation  by  the  pulpit,  a  realization  of 
that  enslavement,  there  will  be  developed  no  com- 
pelling consciousness  of  the  need  of  an  Emancipator. 

The  majority  of  our  clergymen,  as  well  as  of  our 
laymen,  are  probably  believers  in  the  general  theory 
of  evolution ;  but  simple  observation  would  seem  to 
be  sufficient  to  constrain  us  all  to  hold  the  doctrine 
in  such  way  as  not  to  fall  into  error  of  supposing  that 
what  is  bad  can  by  process  of  unfolding  develop  into 
what  is  good. 

Tilings  develop  undoubtedly ;  that  is  the  universal 


36  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

tendency;  it  is  part  of  the  scheme  of  nature  and  of 
supeniature;  but  they  can  develop  downward  as  well 
as  upward.  Tilings  can  go  on  growing  or  they  can 
go  on  rotting.  It  is  just  as  much  in  the  nature  of  a 
young  apple,  that,  under  certain  conditions,  it  should 
become  more  and  more  decayed,  as  it  is  that  under 
other  certain  conditions  it  should  become  more  and 
more  rosy  and  luscious.  St.  James  unconsciously 
confessed  himself  an  evolutionist  when  he  wrote, 
"When  evil  desire  hath  conceived,  it  bringeth  forth 
sin ;  and  sin,  when  it  is  finished,  bringeth  forth  death." 

It  is  not  the  purpose  of  these  paragraphs  to  discuss 
the  doctrine  of  evolution,  but  only  to  assert  the  prin- 
ciple that  only  that  which  is  good  can  grow  into  what 
is  better,  wliile  that  which  is  bad  tends,  at  the  pres- 
sure of  an  inherent  force,  toward  what  is  worse,  so 
that  only  by  the  interference  of  a  power  above  nature 
can  nature's  tendencies  be  withstood  and  overcome. 
And  out  of  that  fact  springs  naturally  the  suggestion 
that  a  twentieth  century  preacher  can  only  equal 
himself  to  the  demands  of  existing  conditions  by 
making  himself  familiar  with  the  thoughts  that 
people,  especially  young  people,  are  thinking  upon 
such  matters.  This  is  a  point  that  will  offer  itself 
for  later  consideration,  if  time  shall  permit. 

It  will  be,  furthermore,  a  part  of  the  preacher's 
practical  handling  of  his  congregation  to  rub  into 


Pulpit  Aims  37 

the  consciousness  of  its  members  the  fact  that  engag- 
ing their  intellectual  attention  and  enlightening  them 
is  of  only  subordinate  value,  and  at  most  only  a  means 
to  a  remoter  end.  To  say  of  one  that  he  is  an  inter- 
esting preacher,  or  even  that  he  is  an  instructive 
preacher,  may  mean  much,  and  may  mean  nothing 
at  all.  "He  came  that  they  might  have  life,"  says 
the  Gospel  of  John,  and  light  is  not  life,  not  neces- 
sarily. Mere  illumination  will  not  make  a  plant  grow, 
nor  restrain  the  leaves  on  the  trees  from  decaying 
and  falling  to  earth. 

A  highly  educated  congregation  is  not  to  be  dealt 
with  in  a  manner  different  from  that  to  be  pursued 
in  addressing  an  uneducated  one,  except  so  far  as  the 
mode  of  address  is  concerned,  but  not  so  far  as 
relates  to  its  matter  and  the  object  had  in  view. 

One  great  difficulty  involved  in  addressing  culti- 
vated listeners  lies  in  the  fact  that  if  the  discourse 
be  what  is  called  an  ably  constructed  one,  the  enjoy- 
ment that  they  take,  in  feeling  their  own  mental 
machinery  moving  responsively,  they  will  suppose  to 
be  religious  enjoyment.  Experiencing  the  revolution 
of  the  wheels  of  our  mentality  is  a  pleasurable  one 
always.  And  very  often  that  is  all  that  a  person 
means  when  he  says  of  his  minister  that  he  likes  his 
preaching.  If  he  understood  himself  better  he  would 
say  that  he  is  fascinated  by  his  own  cerebral  actiAaty. 


38  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

Or  he  may  say  that  he  likes  his  preacher  because  of 
the  way  that  he  put  things ;  he  is  entertained  by  the 
preacher's  intellectual  agihty. 

The  same  thing  is  true  in  the  sanctuary  as  is  true 
of  the  majority  of  attendants  at  a  concert  hall,  who 
come  away  from  the  rendering  of  a  celebrated  violin- 
ist charmed,  they  say,  with  the  music  wliich  he  dis- 
courses, while  the  real  fact  in  the  case  is  that  they 
are  captivated  by  his  digital  dexterity,  and  were 
anxious  to  sit  where  they  could  see  him,  since  it  is 
with  their  eyes  that  they  listened  rather  than  with 
their  ears.  So  in  listening  to  a  pianist,  so  in  Hstening 
to  a  vocalist,  who  is  certain  to  stir  the  house  to 
tumultuous  applause  if  she  is  able  to  bring  her  flight 
to  a  finish  by  lighting  at  sky-C. 

By  making  the  pulpit  the  medium  for  deahng 
directly  with  people  with  a  view  to  promoting  their 
more  and  more  complete  emancipation  from  sin  and 
sin's  power,  and  by  giving  it  to  be  definitely  under- 
stood that  that  is  the  pulpit's  prime  mission,  the 
pulpit  has  secured  to  it  a  character  that  differen- 
tiates it  from  every  other  appliance  worked  in  the 
interests  of  human  uphft,  and  so  creates  for  itself 
a  clear  place  among  the  instrumentalities  of  progress. 

In  this  way  it  flatly  meets  the  question,  quite  often 
proposed,  and  in  many  instances  honestly  proposed. 
What  occasion  is  there  for  the  maintenance  of  such 


Pulpit  Aims  39 

an  institution  in  addition  to  all  the  other  influences 
that  are  being  operated  in  man's  behest,  and  operated 
with  such  an  outlay  of  money,  time  and  talent?  It 
is  a  proper  question  to  ask  and  one  to  which  the 
pulpit,  by  the  way  in  which  it  uses  itself,  and  by  the 
programme  whose  pursuance  it  publicly  announces 
for  itself  and  binds  upon  itself,  should  make  a  frank 
and  sufficient  reply.  And  that  reply  it  furnishes  by 
holding  itself  consistently  and  pronouncedly  to  the 
work  of  emancipating  men  individually  and  collec- 
tively from  the  power  of  sin.  In  that  field  the  pulpit, 
using  the  term  in  its  comprehensive  sense,  stands 
practically  alone. 

It  is  not  a  field  that  can  be  fairly  said  to  be  occu- 
pied by  the  press,  certainly  not  the  secular  press. 
Its  point  of  view  if  not  irreligious, — as  a  good  deal  of 
it  is, — is  at  any  rate  unreligious.  If  it  chronicles 
events  occurring  in  the  religious  world,  it  does  it  in 
a  colorless  way  carefully  inexpressive  of  an}'^  moral 
sj'mpathy  with  that  which  the  event  may  be  supposed 
to  import. 

There  is  no  objection  to  be  urged  against  this.  It 
is  proper  and  to  the  public  advantage  that  each 
aspect  of  our  many-sided  life  should  have  its  journa- 
listic organs. 

Each  class  of  matters  is  best  treated  by  experts. 
St.  Paul  could  not  have  made  a  success  of  the  New 


40  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

York  World,  any  more  than  Mr.  Pulitzer  could  have 
creditably  edited  the  Epistles  to  the  Romans.  This 
is  no  reflection  upon  either  the  deceased  editor  or  the 
Apostle, 

This  is  not  saying  that  our  secular  papers  do  not 
contain  a  vast  amount  of  edifying  material.  Society 
would  be  poorer  without  them.  They  promote  intel- 
ligence by  furnishing  material  for  thought ;  they 
bring  unrelated  individuals  into  a  kind  of  mutual 
touch,  help  to  promote  a  sense  of  the  soKdarity  of  the 
race,  and  make  each  several  man  a  sharer  in  the  hfe 
and  experience  of  the  race. 

And  still  farther  it  is  to  be  gratefully  allowed  that 
all  of  our  best  newspapers  are  fosterers  of  morahty. 
But  morality  is  not  religion  and  does  not  carry  in  it 
even  the  flavor  of  rehgion's  essence, — a  matter,  how- 
ever, which  must  be  reserved  to  another  address  as 
being  too  large  to  be  considered  in  this  particular 
connection. 

As  for  our  religious  journals,  not  as  much  is  to  be 
said  for  most  of  them  as  it  would  be  pleasant  to  say. 
Speaking  broadly,  they  do  not  make  large  contri- 
butions toward  the  evangelizing  of  the  world.  It  is 
a  well-known  fact,  frequently  illustrated,  that  they 
are  individually  so  moribund  that  two  or  more  have 
to  pool  their  issues  in  order  to  make  one  live  thing. 


Pulpit  Aims  41 

Another  expedient  is  to  court  popularity  by  reducing 
to  magazine  form  and  padding  with  secularity. 

This  is  said  in  all  respect  to  such  few  papers  as 
continue  to  be  in  fact  what  they  are  in  their  claims, 
and  serve  as  a  kind  of  legible  pulpit,  presenting 
Christianity  in  its  essence  and  with  a  combination  of 
intelligence  and  piety  that  commands  respect.  There 
are  three  elements  essential  to  the  success  of  religious 
journalism, — three  that  are  rarely  found  in  combina- 
tion,— an  unlimited  amount  of  capital,  an  inexhaust- 
ible supply  of  brain  and  a  rich  infusion  of  the 
evangelical  spirit. 

The  more  amply,  therefore,  the  pulpit  fulfils  its 
distinctive  function  as  an  implement  of  God  for 
delivering  the  soul  from  the  thraldom  of  sin,  the  more 
inadequate  becomes  the  claim  put  forth  by  Sunday 
journalism  that  it  brings  to  the  reader  thoughts 
that  are  as  elevated  in  their  tone,  as  nutritive  to  the 
intellect,  as  what  the  pulpit  brings  to  the  listener, 
and  phrased  perhaps  in  terms  more  finished  and 
cultivated  in  their  diction  than  any  of  which  the 
average  preacher  may  be  capable. 

No  one  will  deny  the  literary,  intellectual  and 
possibly  also  the  ethical  claims  of  our  best  secular 
journals,  especially  in  their  Sunday  issues,  which, 
saving  the  coarse  and  flashy  cartoons  with  which  most 
of  them  are  disfigured,  are  the  choicest  of  the  week. 


42  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

But  even  so,  they  are  not  constructed,  and  are  not 
intended  to  be  constructive,  in  a  way  to  accomplish 
what  is  properly  the  prime  purpose  of  Christian 
preaching,  viz.,  to  hold  the  soul  consciously  in  the 
presence  of  its  God  and  thus  to  dehver  it  out  of  the 
power  of  the  de\dl  into  a  growing  experience  of 
divine  sonship.  Second  only  to  the  lusts  of  the  flesh, 
Sunday  journalism  and  the  automobile  are  the  worst 
enemies  of  sanctuary  worship. 

Nor  any  more  than  the  press  does  the  stage  cover 
the  territory  specifically  accorded  to  the  pulpit.  In 
an  interview  which  it  was  my  pleasure  to  have  with 
Madame  Bernhardt  a  year  or  two  ago,  one  question 
which  I  asked  her  she  failed  to  answer.  She  had  told 
me  that  any  inquiry  I  put  to  her  she  would  reply  to, 
but  in  one  instance  she  was  evasive,  and  very  much  to 
my  regret,  for  I  felt  that  her  answer  to  that  particu- 
lar question  would  reveal  a  good  deal  to  me  as  to  the 
moral  and  religious  attitude  of  the  great  actress. 
The  inquiry  to  which  I  failed  to  receive  a  reply  was 
tliis :  "Do  you  give  your  preference  to  the  pulpit  or 
the  stage  considered  as  means  of  human  uplift?" 

She  is  too  bright  and  too  experienced  a  person  not 
to  have  a  rather  definite  opinion  upon  a  question  of 
that  kind,  lying  so  close  as  it  does  to  the  line  of  her 
own  interest  and  pursuit.  I  have  always  wondered 
why  it  was  that,  communicative  as  she  proved  to  be 


Pulpit  Aims  43 

upon  all  other  matters  to  wliich  her  attention  was 
called,  she  was  so  reticent  upon  this. 

Even  among  distinctively  church  circles  there  has 
been  during  the  last  fifty  years  a  decided  change  of 
opinion,  or  at  least  of  usage,  as  toward  the  theater. 
Whether  the  truth  of  the  case  is  to  be  stated  by 
saying  that  change  of  sentiment  induced  change  of 
usage,  or  change  of  usage  induced  change  of  senti- 
ment, is  a  question  about  which  opinions  might  differ. 
We  know  that  in  such  matters  people  sometimes  alter 
their  customs  and  habits  first,  and  then  adjust  their 
opinions  to  match.  It  is  rather  commonly  the  case 
that  we  shape  our  doctrines  to  fit  our  behavior 
rather  than  our  beha^dor  to  fit  our  doctrines,  and, 
having  learned  to  allow  ourselves  modes  of  living  and 
doing:  that  conscience  would  at  one  time  have  for- 
bidden,  turn  around  and  fix  over  our  doctrine  in  a 
way  to  satisfy  the  necessities  of  our  altered  and 
perhaps  deteriorated  behavior ;  for  we  do  like  to  keep 
our  conduct  and  our  creed  somewhere  in  sight  of  each 
other,  whether  by  prodding  the  one  or  curbing  the 
other.  This  is  not,  however,  to  be  taken  as  a  critique 
upon  the  theater,  for  that  which  the  theater  has  to 
offer — assuming  of  course  that  it  is  untainted — 
undoubtedly  meets  a  legitimate  demand,  in  that  it 
ministers  refreshment  that  is  rational  without  being 


44  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

mentally    wearying    and    that    is    diverting    without 
being  sensuously  debasing. 

All  of  tliis,  however,  is  simply  preliminary  to  my 
confident  contention  that  except  in  the  very  rarest 
instances  are  people  made  either  finer  in  their  piety 
or  even  purer  in  their  morals  by  what  is  offered  them 
by  the  stage.  A  man  is  not  religiously  nor  morally 
bettered  by  any  influence  that  does  not  tend  to  some 
sort  of  moral  or  religious  action,  and  that  is  a  result 
which,  judging  from  observation  and  from  experi- 
ence, is  not  predicable  of  dramatic  exhibition.  The 
whole  movement  upon  the  boards  is  maintained  in  an 
unsubstantial  atmosphere  of  make-believe.  A  suc- 
cessful actress,  who  consulted  me  in  regard  to  certain 
matters  that  touched  closer  to  the  line  of  actual  hring 
than  those  that  were  traversed  by  her  own  dramatic 
experience,  once  said  to  me,  "That  which  you  say  is 
probably  true  but  I  have  hved  so  long  and  so  con- 
stantly in  the  realm  of  the  unreal  that  I  am  not  able 
to  discriminate  between  what  is  true  and  what  is 
false." 

A  whole  audience  may  be  brought  to  sob  with 
tender  emotion  without  a  single  member  having  his 
heart  permanently  softened  into  a  condition  of  finer 
altruism.  Tears  wrung  from  the  eyes  by  fictitious 
sin  or  fictitious  sorrow  neither  spring  from  the  heart 
nor  soak  back  into  the  heart  in  gracious  irrigation. 


Pulpit  Aims  45 

The  preacher  of  today  has  to  address  himself  to 
people  who  are  in  almost  every  respect  in  a  condition 
of  unsettlement  and  revolt,  and  to  the  extent  that  he 
reahzes  that  fact  it  will  be  one  of  his  aims  to  secure  in 
them  quietness  and  establisliment  of  mind.  When 
we  speak  into  a  storm  our  voice  will  not  carry.  The 
pulpit  today  faces  an  attitude  of  denial.  The  age  is 
a  thoughtful  one  and  if  feeling  produces  among 
people  relations  of  convergence,  thinking  produces 
correspondingly  a  state  of  divergence.  People  feel 
together,  but  think  apart.  The  situation,  so  far 
forth,  is  a  wholesome  one,  but  it  is  a  difficult  one  to 
face.  It  is  better  to  be  a  sincere  heretic  than  to  go 
stumbling  along  under  the  burden  of  a  barren  tradi- 
tion. It  is  better  to  think  wrong  than  not  to  think 
at  all. 

At  the  same  time,  while  there  is  a  stimulus  in 
speaking  to  a  congregation  made  up  of  men  and 
women  who  think  that  there  is  not  in  addressing  a 
crowd  of  intellectual  dummies,  or  an  assembly  of  such 
people  as  the  preachers  of  fifty  or  a  hundred  years 
ago  had  to  address,  who  in  all  matters  of  Christian 
doctrine  expected  the  parson  to  do  their  tliinking  for 
them,  and  during  his  ministrations  patiently  slept  out 
of  confidence  in  liis  doctrinal  infalHbility,  yet  the 
altered  situation  subjects  the  preacher  of  the  present 
to  a  strain  that  while  stimulating  is  also  perplexing. 


46  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

In  another  lecture  I  shall  speak  of  prophetic 
authority  considered  as  a  qualified  preacher's  pre- 
rogative ;  but  whatever  of  truth  there  will  be  in  the 
point  for  which  I  shall  then  contend,  it  still  remains 
a  fact  that  in  these  days  the  people  in  the  pews  are 
slow  to  believe  a  thing  is  true  simply  on  the  strength 
of  the  preacher's  ipse  dixit.  It  will  not  be  true  to 
them  because  he  says  it  is  true.  So  far  forth,  he  is 
the  prisoner  in  the  dock  and  they  are  the  jury,  and 
after  the  service  is  over  and  the  benediction  pro- 
nounced they  will  gather  about  their  respective  dinner 
tables  and  bring  in  their  verdict. 

As  things  are,  very  little  will  be  accomplished  by 
any  direct  attempt  to  refute  existing  errors  of 
opinion,  certainly  not  if  they  are  errors  that  are 
sincerely  entertained,  as  very  likely  they  are.  There 
is,  however,  an  underlying  basis  of  orthodoxy  in  every 
man's  soul.  It  is  at  that  point  that  the  preacher  has 
to  put  in  his  work.  The  foundations  of  our  nature 
are  not  laid  in  the  false  but  in  the  true.  The  consti- 
tutional veracity  latent  in  the  human  is  our  one 
available  point  of  access. 

To  whatever  extent  error  may  have  developed, 
fundamentally  we  are  not  fools.  However  far  inward 
depravity  may  have  pursued  its  corrosive  course,  we 
are  not  totally  corrupted.  Unless  a  man  has  ceased 
to  be  human  there   still   survives  in  him   a   spot,   a 


Pulpit  Aims  47 

residuum,  of  original  soundness.  And  it  is  that  spot 
really  that  does  the  only  effective  homiletical  work. 
Every  man  has  to  be  his  own  preacher.  The  testi- 
mony of  his  own  soul  is  about  the  only  testimony  that 
he  puts  unreserved  confidence  in. 

A  man  cannot  be  argued,  nor  argue  liimself,  out 
of  what  he  himself  personally  testifies  to.  What  I 
know,  I  know,  even  if  it  is  something  that  I  do  not 
like  to  know.  It  was  when  the  prodigal  came  to 
himself  that  were  constructed  in  him  the  beginnings 
of  a  new  life.  It  was  when  Nathan  had  succeeded  in 
penetrating  to  the  original  David  and  in  making 
Da^ad  reason  with  himself,  that  he  gained  the  object, 
and  gathered  the  fruits  of  his  discourse. 

Sin  can  be  resolved  into  environment  and  heredity 
till  the  sinner  has  been  forced  to  forget  his  sur- 
roundings and  his  ancestry  and  to  look  straight  into 
his  oviTi  eye,  and  his  consciousness  has  become  defi- 
nitely and  exclusively  self-consciousness.  And,  in 
general,  the  preacher  will  have  accomplished  the 
legitimate  pui-pose  of  his  sermon  if  he  shall  have 
succeeded  in  sending  his  hearers  out  of  the  church 
less  mindful  of  the  thoughts  and  phrases  that  have 
come  to  them  from  the  pulpit,  than  they  are  of  the 
discourse  that  is  being  delivered  to  them  from  the 
closer  and  more  persuasive  oracles  of  their  own 
hearts. 


Ill 

THE  PULPIT'S  ESTIMATE  OF  THE  PEW 

Psychology  is  as  essential  as  theology  to  the 
proper  presentation  of  pulpit  truth.  The  candidate 
for  orders  is  always  assumed  to  have  a  knowledge  of 
God.  It  is  sometimes  an  assumption  contrary  to  fact, 
but  so  much  is  supposed, — supposed  by  the  congrega- 
tion to  which  he  ministers,  previously  supposed  by  the 
council  or  presbytery  by  which  he  has  been  com- 
mended to  the  congregation.  It  is  assumed  that  he 
has  made  himself  rationally  acquainted  with  the 
Divine  Idea,  and  empirically  acquainted  with  the 
Divine  Being,  so  that  he  is  in  condition  to  say  out  of 
a  full  and  honest  heart,  "I  know  whom  I  have 
believed." 

The  ground  which  tliis  opening  paragraph  has 
suggested  is  so  familiar  as  scarcely  needing  to  be 
traversed  in  this  presence,  and  serves  me  simply  as 
a  point  of  departure  from  which  to  go  on  and  say 
that  the  reverent  intimacy  with  God,  required  of  a 
preacher,  in  order  that  he  may  have  in  thought  and 
sentiment  the  matter  that  it  is  his  office  to  present, 
needs  to  be  matched  by  a  complementary,  familiar 
intimacy  with  man,  in  order  that  the  message  which 


The  Pulpit's  Estimate  of  the  Pew        49 

he  brings  may  be  effectively  fitted  to  the  nature  and 
condition  of  those  whom  he  brings  it  to. 

It  is  scripturally  related  of  Christ  that  one  of  his 
ministerial  qualifications  lay  in  the  fact  that  he  knew 
what  was  in  man.  This  complements  that  other 
knowledge  which  he  had  of  what  was  in  God.  The 
preacher  is  in  that  respect  something  like  the  skilled 
sharpshooter,  who,  while  understanding  how  to 
handle  his  piece,  insists  upon  having  definitely  in 
view  the  object  to  which — not  toward  wliich,  but  to 
which — it  is  to  be  discharged. 

One  effect  of  this  will  be  that  the  preacher  will  be 
disposed,  frequently  at  least,  to  particularize  lus 
message.  What  I  want  to  say  is  that  every  congre- 
gation is  made  up  of  a  number  of  contributory  con- 
gregations. There  is  a  sub-congregation  of  the  old 
and  another  of  the  young;  one  of  the  rich  and 
another  of  the  poor ;  one  of  the  learned  and  another 
of  the  untaught ;  one  of  the  converted  and  another 
of  the  unregenerate. 

Each  sub-congregation  requires  its  specific  treat- 
ment. Preaching  that  is  excessively  homogeneous  in 
its  quality  and  style  is  likely  to  prevent  heterogeneity 
in  the  make-up  of  the  congregation,  and  therefore 
to  work  its  impairment  in  strength  and  efficiency. 

We  know  that  Christ  shaped  his  treatment  to 
match  the  character  and  condition  of  those  with  whom 


50  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

he  was  dealing.  Certain  matters  he  presented  to  the 
multitude,  other  certain  matters  to  his  disciples. 
Even  as  regards  his  disciples  he  made  a  difference. 
There  was  among  them  an  outer  and  also  an  inner 
circle,  receiving,  respectively,  exoteric  and  esoteric 
treatment. 

That  principle  will  not  absolutel}^  exclude  preach- 
ing that  has  in  it  an  element  of  universality,  the 
presentation  of  truths  that  are  universally  appli- 
cable,— what,  in  all  respect,  we  might  designate  as 
blunderbuss  preaching,  calculated  for  general  effects. 
Still  I  think  that,  as  a  rule,  presentations  of  truth 
that  are  shaped  with  a  reference  that  is  specific, 
carries  with  it,  on  the  part  of  speaker  and  hearer 
both,  a  livelier  sense  of  personal  touch,  for  the  hearer 
will  best  feel  the  truth  when  he  feels  the  preacher  and 
when  he  realizes  that  he  is  himself  the  one  that  is 
being  particularly  approached  and  addressed. 

The  preacher  feels  that  he  has  accomphshed  some- 
thing when  on  Monday  he  is  told  by  a  parisliioner, 
"I  felt  as  though  you  were  talking  to  me  yesterday." 
To  that  extent  there  is  an  advantage  in  small  con- 
gregations. The  personal  element  is  economized.  A 
hearer  occupying  a  front  pew,  who  had  been  accus- 
tomed to  appropriate  to  the  occupants  of  the  pews 
behind  whatever  practical  lessons  were  delivered  from 
the  pulpit,  never  made  personal  application  of  them 


The  Pulpit's  Estimate  of  the  Pew        51 

to  himself  till,  on  an  inclement  Sabbath,  he  discovered 
that  he  and  the  sexton  constituted  the  entire  congre- 
gation. 

The  effective  pleader  at  the  bar  applies  this  prin- 
ciple with  a  seriousness  and  confidence  not  always 
predicable  of  the  preacher,  and  makes  it  part  of  his 
practice  to  deal  not  altogether  with  the  jury  as  a 
whole,  but,  in  important  cases,  specifically  with  each 
individual  juryman. 

An  example  of  this  is  recorded  in  the  biography  of 
Rufus  Choate.  I  do  not  recall  the  offense  charged 
against  the  defendant,  in  whose  behalf  the  dis- 
tinguished attorney  was  pleading ;  but  at  any  rate 
the  suit  was  one  in  which  ]\lr.  Choate  was  deeply 
interested  and  wliich  he  was  especially  concerned  to 
win.  In  the  course  of  his  plea  a  card  was  handed  to 
him  on  which  was  written,  "Will  Mr.  Choate  kindly 
suspend  his  plea  for  a  moment  and  have  a  word  in  the 
ante-room  with  the  person  whose  name  is  on  this 
card.'*"  Mr.  Choate  considered  the  request  for  a 
moment,  then  turned  the  card  over  and  wrote,  "Yes, 
presently;  I  have  already  got  all  the  jury  with  the 
exception  of  the  red-headed  fellow  on  the  back  seat. 
I  shall  have  him  in  a  few  minutes  and  then  I  will  come 
out." 

That    principle    sagaciously    applied    was    part 
secret   of  Mr.    Choate's   phenomenal   success  with   a 


52  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

jury.  Other  tilings  being  equal,  what  each  hearer 
will  appropriate  to  himself  will,  in  quantity,  vary 
inversely  with  the  number  of  hearers.  Under  such 
circumstance  the  aritlimetic  law  still  holds,  that  the 
smaller  the  divisor  the  larger  the  quotient. 

Christ  accordingly  avoided  large  congregations, 
not  courted  them.  Some  of  liis  most  memorable 
words  were  spoken  to  a  single  hearer.  He  spent  most 
of  his  time  with  an  audience  so  small  that  some  of  us 
would  not  think  it  worth  our  while  to  minister  to  it. 
Anxiety  to  stand  before  a  thousand  or  two  people  is 
quite  as  likely  to  proceed  from  the  preacher's  ambi- 
tion to  exploit  himself  as  from  any  holy  passion  to 
give  widest  possible  currency  to  God's  truth,  and  to 
submit  the  greatest  number  of  souls  to  its  gracious 
governance. 

While  discussing  this  matter  of  the  human  element, 
and  of  preaching  that  is  direct  and  particularized, 
and  in  which  the  speaker  has  a  vivid  sense  of  the 
individual  hearers  whom  he  is  addressing,  it  will  be 
quite  apropos  to  interpolate  a  paragraph  or  two 
touching  the  comparative  merits  of  written  and 
unwritten  discourse. 

There  is  no  absolutely  best  method  of  preaching. 
The  question  is  like  that  of  the  best  form  of  govern- 
ment. The  best  form  of  government  is  that  which  is 
most  consonant  with  the  qualifications  of  the  gover- 


The  Pulpit's  Estimate  of  the  Pew        53 

nor,  and  the  condition  of  the  governed.  In  Hke 
manner  the  best  method  of  preaching  is  that  which  is 
most  in  keeping  with  the  aptitudes  of  the  pulpit  and 
the  condition  of  the  pew. 

If  the  preacher's  use  of  a  manuscript  is  such  as  to 
deaden  his  consciousness  of  those  whom  he  is  supposed 
to  be  addressing,  such,  that  is  to  say,  that  either  he 
or  his  hearers  feel  that  the  manuscript  fomis  a  barrier 
between  the  pulpit  and  the  pew,  then  certainly  the 
manuscript  ought  to  be  dispensed  with.  Preaching 
proper,  Hke  any  other  kind  of  teaching,  involves  an 
interchange  of  personalities,  and  anything  that 
embarrasses  the  exchange  and  interrupts  the  circuit 
is  fatal. 

But  in  cases  where  there  is  no  such  sacrifice  of 
results  there  is  a  good  deal  that  can  be  said  for 
sermons  delivered  from  manuscript.  Yet  it  has  to  be 
conceded  that  my  own  habits  of  discourse  have 
created  in  me  a  prejudice  that  decidedly  impairs  the 
value  of  my  own  judgment  upon  the  matter,  for  I 
have  rarely  preached  what  is  called  "extemporane- 
ousl}'"  without  its  resulting  in  a  strong  inclination  to 
retire  from  the  ministry. 

Not  to  go  into  the  matter  lengthily,  therefore, 
written  preparation  helps  to  secure  the  preacher 
against  monotonousness  of  idea  and  monotonousness 
of  expression.     It  encourages  in  him  compactness  of 


54  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

style.  It  affords  him  greater  opportunity  to  put 
things  in  that  acuminated  manner  that  will  help  to 
make  them  stick  in  the  memory  of  the  hearer.  It 
helps  to  say  more  in  the  same  length  of  time. 

I  once  heard  it  remarked  of  the  late  Dr.  Storrs, 
that  it  took  him  forty-five  minutes  to  say  as  much 
extemporaneously  as  he  had  been  previously  able  to 
say  in  thirty,  when  he  preached  from  notes ;  and 
when  Howard  Crosby  was  asked  how  long  a  sermon 
should  be,  he  said,  "Thirty  minutes,  with  a  leaning  to 
mercy."  It  will,  moreover,  be  one  of  the  by-products 
of  the  written  method  that  it  will  secure  a  certain 
conciseness  of  phrase,  a  certain  unforgetableness  in 
some  of  its  utterances,  which  will  be  recognized,  if 
repeated  before  the  same  congregation,  and  tend, 
therefore,  to  discourage  the  idle  habit  of  preacliing 
old  sermons. 

In  learning  to  know  what  man  is,  our  first  attention 
will  require  to  be  given,  not  to  men  indiA^dual  or 
otherwise,  as  we  see  them  about  us,  but  to  man  as  he 
exists  in  God's  thought,  to  man  as  he  was  divinely 
anticipated  and  contemplated  when  were  spoken 
those  original  words,  "Let  us  make  man  in  our 
image." 

Even  when  we  study  humanness  as  imperfectly 
illustrated  in  ourselves  and  our  contemporaries,  the 
thing  of  largest  interest  and  import  is  still  not  the 


The  Pulpit's  Estimate  of  the  Pew        55 

defective  shapes  in  wliich  it  today  evinces  itself,  but 
in  the  traces  which  it  affords  of  undecayed,  primeval 
originality,  even  as  students  of  art  seriously  con- 
template the  splendid  ruins  of  Greek,  Roman  and 
Oriental  arclutecture,  not  out  of  interest  in  the  decay, 
into  which  that  arcliitecture  has  largely  fallen,  but 
out  of  loving  admiration  and  veneration  for  the 
unconsumed  splendor  which  that  decay  imperfectly 
disguises. 

History  affords  us  rare  instances  of  more  or  less 
close  approximation  to  man  in  his  ideal  perfectness, 
but  only  in  the  person  of  Christ  does  God's  thought 
of  man  come  to  its  complete  utterance.  Christ  is 
man  as  God  saw  him,  felt  him,  loved  him,  before 
there  was  a  man,  even  as  he  saw,  admired  and  cher- 
ished the  tabernacle  in  the  wilderness,  before  the 
divine  tabernacle-concept  had  come  to  its  architec- 
tural embodiment  at  the  hands  of  Moses.  Everything 
was,  before  it  existed. 

We  are  not  going  to  be  tempted,  at  tliis  point,  into 
any  feats  of  theological  analysis.  Analysis  is  fatal. 
We  are  not  here  to  deny  anything  but  only  to  affirm. 
To  attempt  the  explanation  of  what  is  essentially  a 
mystery  robs  it  of  the  power  that  belongs  to  it  as 
mystery,  without  making  any  addition  to  the  sum  of 
our  available  convictions.  It  is  enough  to  say  that 
Christ's    relation   to    God   was    such    that   he    could 


56  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

authoritatively  reveal  the  divine,  and  his  relation  to 
man  such  that  he  could  authoritatively  reveal  the 
human. 

More  use  has  been  made  of  liim  in  the  former  rela- 
tion than  in  the  latter,  although  it  is  certainly  as 
important  that  we  should  have  an  understanding  of 
humanness  as  of  divineness,  and  as  yet  we  are  as  far 
from  comprehending  the  mystery  of  the  former  as  we 
are  from  comprehending  the  mystery  of  the  latter. 

That  is  not  a  thing  to  surpnse  us  if  we  accept  in 
its  literalness  the  language  descriptive  of  man 
employed  by  the  Psalmist,  as  given  in  the  revised 
reading:  "What  is  man  that  thou  art  mindful  of  him 
and  the  son  of  man  that  thou  visitest  him.''  For  thou 
hast  made  him  a  little  lower  than  God,  and  hast 
crowned  him  with  glory  and  honor." 

It  was  the  purpose  of  the  theology  under  whose 
pulpit  influence  some  of  the  older  ones  of  us  were 
brought  up,  to  lay  the  emphasis  not  on  the  natural 
dignity  of  human  nature,  but  on  its  acquired  corrup- 
tion, and  having  driven  in  the  nail  to  head  it  down  by 
the  rendering  of  such  hymns  as,  "O  what  a  worthless 
worm  am  I !"  And  having  produced  or  attempted  to 
produce  the  impression  that  man  is  so  \ale  as  not  to 
be  really  worth  saving,  invite  divine  grace  to  the 
incompatible  task  of  doing  what  is  not  worth  doing. 

We  are  not  going  to  underestimate  the  bad  signi- 


The  Pulpit's  Estimate  of  the  Pew        57 

ficance  of  sin,  but  sin  is  bad  not  only,  as  we  have 
elsewhere  remarked,  because  it  is  against  God,  but 
just  as  much  because  it  is  against  ourselves.  A  black 
spot  is  very  nearly  as  black  when  seen  against  a  sheet 
of  white  paper  as  when  seen  against  the  sun.  If 
human  nature  is  inherently  vile,  then  the  most  com- 
mendable and  consistent  thing  it  can  do  is  to  do  vile 
things.  The  depth  of  our  fall  is  to  be  measured  only 
by  the  height  from  which  we  have  fallen.  So  that 
the  very  word  "fall"  is  suggestive  of  altitude.  A  dog 
cannot  sin  because  he  is  by  nature  at  the  bottom  and 
no  moral  altitude  is  given  him  to  drop  from. 

Sin  is  related  to  the  moral  constitution  as  disease 
is  to  the  physical.  Health  we  recognize  as  our  normal 
condition,  and  sickness  as  a  mere  contingent.  So 
that  if  we  are  ill  we  are  not  satisfied  till  there  has 
been  effected  in  us  complete  recovery.  We  have  so 
much  respect  for  our  body  that  it  discontents  us 
unless  all  its  organs  function  perfectly.  If  we 
cherished  the  same  low  estimate  of  our  body  that 
some  of  our  theology  cherishes  of  our  soul  then  we 
should  accept  invalidism  as  our  normal  condition, 
be  satisfied  with  it,  and  enjoy  ill  health.  As  it  is,  we 
estimate  our  present  physical  condition  from  the 
standard  of  perfect  health,  and  because  of  that  allow 
to  invahdism  no  substantial  place  in  our  bodily  creed ; 
and  whatever  our  decrepitude  it  is  a  physique  in  its 


58  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

absolute   completeness  that   is   the   criterion   of   our 
estimate  and  the  aim  of  our  endeavor. 

We  have  then  an  ambition  for  our  bodies  that  we 
have  not  for  our  souls.  When  we  are  physically  ill 
we  try  to  get  well.  When  we  are  morally  ill  we  only 
try  to  get  a  httle  better.  The  souls  of  those  in  the 
pew  are  not,  as  a  rule,  thrilled  with  the  ideal  of  per- 
fection, and  the  preacher,  embarrassed  by  the  knowl- 
edge of  that  fact,  is  hesitant  in  his  insistence  upon 
the  doctrine  of  perfection. 

And  they  are  not  thrilled  with  the  ideal  for  the 
reason,  in  part  at  least,  that  the  ideal  is  made  insuffi- 
ciently famihar  to  their  regard.  We  teach  our  con- 
gregation to  imitate  Christ,  but  only  half-heartedly 
do  we  insist  upon  their  becoming  reproductions  of 
Christ  in  all  that  relates  to  the  moral  and  the  spirit- 
ual hfe.  We  are  afraid  we  shall  lose  our  hold  upon 
them  if  we  deal  with  them  too  urgently  and  are 
strenuous  and  exacting  in  our  demands  upon  them. 
We  allow  them  to  be  satisfied  with  themselves  if  they 
have  squared  thought,  feeling  and  act  to  what  is  only 
approximately  ideal. 

Or  I  might  state  it  by  saying  that  we  as  preachers 
do  not  encourage  the  members  of  our  congregations 
to  cherish  toward  themselves  the  respect  due  to 
themselves  in  %nrtue  of  the  dignity  inherent  in  their 
constitutional  make-up.    In  a  way  they  reverence  the 


The  Pulpit's  Estimate  of  the  Pew        59 

diAane,  but  they  do  not  reverence  the  human.  They 
call  themselves  children  of  God,  and  once  in  a  while  in 
their  impassioned  moments  they  venture  to  adopt 
the  Scriptural  appellative  and  to  designate  themselves 
God's  offspring. 

The  sentiment  they  entertain  toward  themselves  is 
not  such  that  were  there  no  other  God  they  would 
feel  moved  to  prostrate  themselves  in  worship  before 
the  presence  of  their  own  souls.  I  do  not  mean  idolize 
themselves, — we  do  that  enough  already, — I  mean 
worship  themselves,  thrilled  with  the  sense  of  their 
own  unspeakableness,  stand  in  an  attitude  of  holy 
amazement  before  the  incomprehensible  mystery  of 
their  own  being,  alive  to  the  sense  of  what  it  means  to 
be  able  to  translate  into  terms  of  everyday  speech  the 
silent  language  that  is  traced  in  the  forms  of  nature, 
that  first  great  volume  of  divine  revelation,  competent 
to  think  the  thoughts  of  Almighty  God  over  after 
him,  to  gather  up  in  their  affections  the  interests  of 
all  his  cliildren,  to  feel  the  pulsings  of  the  infinite 
heart,  to  probe  imaginatively  the  depths  of  the 
eternal  past,  to  crowd  their  intuitions  up  toward  the 
dim  heights  of  the  eternal  future,  and  to  realize  that 
years  and  centuries  are  too  contracted  to  match  the 
expansive  possibilities  of  their  souls,  and  that  to  live 
as  lone:  as  God  lives  is  the  least  that  can  satisfy  the 
capabilities  and  the  ambitions  of  the  souls  to  which 


60  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

the  Great  One,  who  is  both  Father  and  Mother,  has 
given  birth. 

It  is  a  thing  for  us  to  remember,  as  preachers,  that 
people  never  surpass  the  hne  laid  down  for  themselves 
in  the  expectations  which  they  cherish  for  themselves. 
Neither  on  the  other  hand  will  they  fall  very  far  short 
of  that  line.  When  the  distance  between  the  character 
one  allows  to  himself  and  the  ideal  he  cherishes  for 
himself  becomes  more  than  about  so  great,  the  pain 
induced  by  a  sense  of  that  distance  provokes  to  the 
improvement  of  character.  A  man  will  not  do  a  bad 
thing  when  the  pleasure  experienced  in  doing  it  is 
less  than  the  self-contempt  excited  by  the  doing  of  it. 
The  security  against  wrong-doing  Hes  in  part,  then, 
in  a  sense  of  insult  done  to  ourselves  by  the  wrong- 
doing. The  thinner  the  skin  the  slighter  the  prick 
needed  in  order  to  disquiet  the  underlying  nerves. 

Our  preacliing,  therefore,  must  be  of  a  character 
to  induce  moral  sensitiveness.  Everything,  then,  that 
makes  for  liigher  ideals  makes  for  character.  We 
never  realize  how  much  dust  there  is  in  the  air  till, 
through  a  pinhole  in  the  wall,  we  let  a  single  sunbeam 
stnke  throug-h  into  a  room  otherwise  dark.  I  have 
immense  confidence  in  light  considered  as  an  energy 
of  redemption.  We  may  be  so  black  as  to  hate  it, 
but  we  are  so  human  as  to  be  fascinated  by  it,  as  the 
blaze  chaiTus  the  moth  even  though  it  singes  its  wings. 


The  Pulpit's  Estimate  of  the  Pew        61 

And  the  joy  and  comfort  in  preacliing  is  that  there 
is  soundness  enough  left  in  an3'  and  every  heart  to 
feel  the  force  of  all  this,  remembering  always  that  it 
is  the  soundness  in  men's  hearts  that  we  are  to  address 
ourselves  to,  and  not  the  unsoundness.  The  sheep 
lost  upon  the  mountains  was  a  lost  sheep,  but  a  sheep 
still  and  valuable  enough  still  to  warrant  going  in 
pursuit  of  it. 

So  that  a  good  text  to  preach  from,  and  frequently, 
too,  is,  "Be  ye  therefore  perfect,  even  as  your  Father 
who  is  in  heaven  is  perfect."  Much  as  we  may  some- 
times shrink  from  laying  upon  the  hearts  of  our  con- 
gregations the  burden  of  so  exacting  a  doctrine,  I 
am  persuaded  that  the  great  mass  of  our  hearers  have 
a  respect  for  moral  thoroughness  that  they  do  not 
have  for  any  kind  of  moral  compromise.  Religion 
suffers  more  from  being  behttled  in  the  pulpit  than 
from  being  magnified,  from  being  dealt  out  in 
homoeopathic  than  from  being  administered  in  allo- 
patliic  apphcations. 

There  prevails  even  among  the  irreligious,  the  con- 
viction that  religion,  whatever  it  may  be,  is  such  a 
tiling  that  it  ought  to  do  a  great  deal  for  people. 
So  that  the  more  exacting  the  demands  that  the 
pulpit  makes  upon  the  pews,  and  the  more  exacting 
the  demands  that  the  pews  make  upon  themselves,  the 
more  there  is  accomplished  toward  maintaining  the 


62  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

respect  naturally  and  popularly  cherished  for  reh- 
gion,  and  the  greater  the  consequent  faciHty  hi 
securing  for  it  popular  adherence. 

Any  object  regarded  as  being  possessed  of  value 
becomes  increasingly  valuable  in  people's  esteem  by 
the  very  difficulty  involved  in  securing  it,  so  that  any 
pulpit  that  makes  religion  easy  makes  it  unpopular, 
by  leading  men  to  feel  that  if  that  is  all  there  is  to  it, 
there  is  no  clearly  distinguished  difference  between 
that  and  no  rehgion,  and  therefore  no  necessity  for 
concerning  one's  self  about  it.  It  is  like  the  case  of 
a  man  who  will  travel  four  thousand  miles  to  cHmb  a 
fifteen  thousand  foot  mountain,  who  will  not  bestir 
himself  out  of  liis  dooryard  to  ascend  a  hundred  foot 
hillock  only  a  stone's  throw  distant.  In  the  latter 
case,  there  is  in  point  of  altitude  so  little  difference 
between  the  level  of  the  two,  that  what  little  widening 
of  prospect  might  be  gained  would  not  be  sufficient 
to  pay  for  the  trouble. 

It  is  for  that  reason  that  we  weaken  the  cause, 
whose  strength  it  is  our  ambition  to  maintain,  when- 
ever we  preach  the  doctrine  of  an  upright  life  in  a 
way  to  hold  it  out  of  relations  with  law  considered  as 
involved  in  the  divine  will  and  the  divine  righteous- 
ness. That  is  only  a  rather  labored  way  of  saying 
that  a  Christian  pulpit  is  no  place  to  present 
morality. 


The  Pulpit's  Estimate  of  the  Pew        63 

In  the  scheme  supposed  to  be  promulgated  from  an 
evangehcal  pulpit  there  is  no  such  thing  as  morality 
considered  apart  from  religion.  It  is  a  waste  of  time 
to  try  to  teach  people,  old  or  young,  to  do  right, 
except  as  what  we  call  "right"  is  something  wloich  is 
guaranteed  by  divine  sanctions.  That  is  the  signifi- 
cance of  the  Old  Testament  story  that  the  Decalogue 
was  written  by  the  finger  of  God.  It  means  that 
what  is  right  is  sometliing  that  God  is  back  of, — not 
right  because  people  have  agreed  to  call  it  right,  not 
right  because  it  would  seem  to  be  a  safer  rule  to  go 
by,  and  one  that  is  perhaps  more  likely  to  lead  on  to 
prosperity,  nor  even  because  it  is  more  consonant 
with  people's  ethical  taste,  but  right  because,  as  I 
said,  it  is  involved  in  the  will  and  righteousness  of 
God. 

That  puts  morality  where  it  belongs.  So  far  from 
its  being  something  more  or  less  distinct  from  reli- 
gion, it  is  involved  in  religion,  because  every  act  of 
man  stands  in  definite  and  prescribed  relations  to 
God's  will.  Just  as  there  are  lines  dirinely  laid  down 
from  the  foundation  of  the  world,  to  which  all  the 
processes  of  the  flowers,  the  seas  and  the  stars  con- 
form, so  there  are  lines  of  obligation  divinely  estab- 
lished from  the  foundation  of  the  world  to  which  it  is 
intended  that  all  the  acts  and  the  entire  behavior  of 
men  shall  conform. 


64  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

We  have  to  tell  the  members  of  our  congregations 
that  when  we  sin  we  do  not  sin  against  each  other, 
nor  against  the  rules  of  society,  but  against  God. 
When  David  came  to  himself  in  the  matter  of  Uriah 
and  Bathsheba,  he  did  not  say  that  it  was  against 
either  of  these  that  he  had  sinned.  His  words  were, 
"Against  thee,  O  God,  and  thee  only  have  I  sinned." 
Viewed  from  a  Christian  pulpit's  standpoint,  morality 
is  not  a  tiling  to  talk  about.  Even  the  word  "moral- 
ity" does  not,  I  beHeve,  once  occur  in  the  Bible.  It 
is  the  term  wliich  is  used  in  an  ungodly  way  to  repre- 
sent the  idea  of  respectable  behavior  being  maintained 
without  any  reference  to  God's  will  in  the  matter. 
It  is  a  godless  word,  an  unbiblical  and  irreligious 
word. 

Such  points  as  this  I  emphasize  here  because  it  dis- 
closes the  inner  tendencies  of  men's  mind,  the 
processes  by  which  it  works  when  left  to  itself,  the 
way  in  which  it  gra^^tates  away  from  what  is  ideally 
prescribed;  and  so  gives  us  something  very  deliber- 
ately and  intelligently  to  address  ourselves  to  in  all 
our  sermonic  dealings. 

A  thorough  appreciation  of  what  man  is  ideally 
and  a  similarly  thorough  appreciation  of  the  intel- 
lectual and  moral  vagaries  into  which  the  ideal  man 
has  lapsed,  the  intricacies  into  which  the  threads  of 
his  thinking;  have  become  ensnarled,  and  the  methods 


The  Pulpit's  Estimate  of  the  Pew        65 

and  motives  by  which  he  has  become  shaken  off  from 
the  foundation  upon  which  humanness  was  originally 
estabhshed, — all  of  this  the  pulpit  needs  to  be 
thoroughl}^  versed  in. 

Healthy  prescription  always  depends  on  safe 
diagnosis,  and  a  preacher  who  does  not  know  both 
the  ideal  man  and  the  man  actual,  is  no  more  fitted 
to  preach  than  a  physician  is  quahfied  to  practice  who 
is  not  famihar  with  anatomy  and  physiology,  both 
normal  and  abnormal.  While  we  do  not  as  ministers 
and  in  our  preparation  for  the  ministry  pursue  the 
monastic  hfe,  yet  there  is  after  all  a  flavor  of  monasti- 
cism  about  it.  We  easily  and  almost  irresistibly 
tliink  and  study  ourselves  out  of  touch  with  the 
secular  hfe. 

I  prize,  more  than  I  can  tell,  the  years  which  I 
spent  in  purely  secular  pursuits  before  entering 
college,  also  the  years  that  I  spent  as  a  secular 
instructor  after  graduating  from  college,  and  at  a 
time  when  I  had  not  the  ministry  at  all  in  view ;  also 
some  interesting,  even  if  rather  trying,  experiences 
which  I  have  had  since  my  ministry  commenced,  and 
which  gave  me  more  insight  into  human  nature  in 
its  luxurious  variety  of  quahties  and  types  than  I 
could  have  acquired  in  any  theological  seminary  in 
the  course  of  a  thousand  years. 


66  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

But  that  is  rather  in  the  nature  of  a  parenthesis. 
One  word  more  about  the  legahties  of  hfe.  We  have 
spoken  of  the  fact  that,  rightly  construed,  in  every- 
thing that  a  man  does  there  is  some  eternal  law  that 
is  exactly  and  imperiously  relevant  to  each  particular 
act.  And  there  is  nothing  more  offensive  to  the 
natural  heart  in  all  that  sphere  of  action  where  he 
exercises  what  he  is  pleased  to  call  liis  free  will  than 
to  be  made  to  feel  that  he  is  working  in  the  presence 
of  objective  authority.  It  is  alwa^'s,  under  such 
circumstance,  a  case  of  will  confronting  will  and  that 
is,  in  the  very  nature,  irritating,  all  the  way  from 
the  infant  to  the  octogenarian. 

It  is  a  state  of  things  that  we  do  not  kick  against 
till  we  come  into  the  domain  where  prevail  the  prin- 
ciples of  right  and  wrong.  In  the  erection  of  a  build- 
ing we  do  not  quarrel  with  the  plumb-line  nor  strive  to 
replace  perpendicularity  and  horizontality  by  any 
obliquities  of  our  own  orig-inating.  By  the  quietness 
and  unresisting  good  nature  with  which,  in  that 
instance,  we  submit  to  what  is,  without  trying  to 
repeal  or  amend  it,  we  show  our  respect  for  objective 
authority. 

Then  there  is  the  matter  of  a  monetary  standard. 
A  recent  presidential  election  turned  on  that  question. 
Some  of  our  people  did  not  want  any  standard,  or  I 
should  say  that  they  wanted  two,  wliich  is  the  same 


The  Pui^pit's  Estimate  of  the  Pew        67 

thing  really  as  not  wanting  any.  In  matters  entirely 
outside  of  moral  considerations,  no  man  any  longer 
estimates  things  by  his  feelings,  nor  weighs  them  by 
his  imagination  or  preference,  or  measures  them  by 
the  length  of  liis  own  particular  forearm,  but 
measures  them  by  the  gauge  that  is  the  ten-millionth 
part  of  the  earth's  meridian  quadrant. 

Which  is  to  say  that  he  renounces  himself  con- 
sidered as  standard  of  computation,  and  takes  as  his 
tape-line  a  quotation  from  the  great  globe.  And  we 
never  find  any  fault  with  it,  nor  do  we,  except  where 
it  is  a  matter  of  personal  and  selfish  interest  to  our- 
selves and  the  principles  of  right  and  wrong  begin  to 
become  involved,  go  about  to  construct  a  yard-stick 
with  as  man}-  inches  as  may  happen  to  suit  our  indi- 
vidual convenience,  or,  as  in  the  instance  of  the  sugar 
trust,  doctor  our  scales  in  a  way  to  contradict  the 
testimony  of  gravity. 

I  went  into  a  jeweler's  lately  to  see  how  my  watch 
was  running.  The  air  was  full  of  the  gentle  throb  of 
all  sorts  of  ticking  apparatus,  such  as  one  always 
hears  in  a  jeweler's  shop.  But  there  was  one  tick 
that  beat  itself  out  from  second  to  second  with  a 
distinctness  and  a  certain  air  of  authoritativeness, 
chronometric  lordliness,  that  seemed  to  say:  "Hear 
me  tick,  and  if  you  want  to  know  what  time  it  is, 
listen  to  me,  and  I  will  tell  you.     I  do  not  tick  by 


68  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

fancy,  I  tick  by  the  law  of  the  universe,  and  by  the 
will  of  God." 

I  said  to  the  jeweler,  "What  is  it?  Where  does  it 
come  from?"  "It  comes  from  Washington,"  he 
answered.  Well,  all  sorts  of  things  come  from  Wash- 
ington, so  that  was  no  rehef  to  me.  But  he  added, 
"It  comes  from  the  Wasliington  observ'atory."  That 
took  the  matter  higher  up,  and  made  it  begin  to  mean 
something.  "But  where  does  the  Washington  obser- 
vatory get  it?"  "Gets  it  from  the  sun."  That 
settled  the  matter  for  me.  A  quotation  from  the 
firmament.     Telephoned  down  from  the  Throne. 

And  so  as  the  jeweler's  apparatus  had  the  whole 
of  God's  univei'se  back  of  it,  and  as  it  was  no  selfish 
concern  of  mine  to  have  my  watch  set  backward  or 
forward  a  little,  I  gave  it  to  him  to  adjust,  so  as  to 
have  it  tick  in  beat  with  the  pace  of  the  firmament 
and  the  mind  of  God.  That  is  an  instance  of  respect 
shown  to  constituted  divine  authority;  and  there 
would  have  been  no  impulse  on  my  part  to  have  my 
watch  run  by  anything  but  standard  time  unless,  for 
some  reason  of  my  o\vn,  and  in  pursuance  of  some 
individual  purpose  of  mine,  I  had  wanted  my  watch 
to  show  an  hour  that  I  had  myself  personally  fixed 
upon — had  wanted,  that  is,  to  set  up  a  httle  chrono- 
metric  observatory  electrically  disconnected  from  the 


The  Puxpit's  Estimate  of  the  Pew        69 

one  that  interprets  time  according  as  time  is  in  the 
Ahnighty  thought. 

Now  we  have  to  impress  it  upon  our  people  that 
every  thought,  fcehng  and  action  stands  properly 
in  just  as  rigid  relation  to  the  movement  of  God's 
thought  as  the  second-hand  of  every  watch  in  the 
world  stands  related  to  God's  horologue  of  the  ages, 
and  that  there  is  no  moral  Kberty  proper  to  man 
other  than  what  is  consistent  with  that  fact,  no 
proper  margin  of  moral  choice  that  is  any  broader 
than  the  margin  of  physical  choice  pertinent  to  the 
flower  in  its  development  from  the  germ  or  to  the 
planet  in  its  revolution  about  the  sun ;  and  that  the 
most  that  we  can  mean  by  liberty  in  the  moral  sphere 
is  the  ability  to  run  without  any  conscious  self- 
constraint  or  self-restraint,  upon  the  divinely  con- 
structed and  ballasted  track  of  moral  duty, — 
righteousness  of  life  become  our  second  nature,  so  in 
sympathy  with  God's  will  as  to  be  able  to  do  that 
will  without  being  conscious  of  it  as  an  objective 
propulsion,  as  the  stars  describe  their  orbits  without 
any  sense  of  the  gravity  that  holds  them  to  their 
orbits;  able,  that  is,  to  think,  feel  and  act  by  the 
power  of  a  renewed  life. 

The  purpose  of  our  discussion  today  has  not  been 
at  all  to  give  a  systematic  analysis  of  the  inner  work- 
ings of  the  human  life  and  its  experiences,  but  only 


70  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

to  draw  attention  to  those  experiences  as  constituting 
the  object  to  which  as  preachers  we  have  to  address 
ourselves,  or  as  constituting  the  conditions  which 
require  to  He  closely  to  our  own  understanding  and 
thought  while  our  appeal  is  being  made.  We  must 
know  who  and  what  it  is  that  we  are  talking  to, 
Humanness  is  the  instrument  which  it  is  the  function 
of  the  preacher  to  play  upon,  and  he  must  know  how 
to  finger  the  manual  in  order  to  draw  the  desired 
response  from  the  instrument's  various  registers. 

"The  proper  study  of  mankind  is  man"  is  an 
injunction  pecuHarly  pertinent  to  the  preacher,  even 
if  not  interpreted  in  precisely  the  sense  in  which  Pope 
intended  it, — humanness  in  its  ideality  as  evinced  in 
the  single  instance  of  Jesus  Christ ;  humanness  in  its 
abnormal  conditions.  In  some  respects  abnormal 
mental  and  moral  anatomy,  even  of  the  extreme  kind, 
serves  the  preacher  the  best,  even  as  analogous  abnor- 
mal physical  anatomy  and  physiology  have  an 
especial  value  for  the  physician. 

Had  time  allowed  I  should  have  liked  to  speak  of 
the  way  in  which  the  legitimate  operations  of  the 
conscience,  and  of  the  intellect  when  applied  to  reli- 
gious questions,  are  swerved  from  their  normal  course 
by  the  influences  exerted  by  scientific  inquiry,  par- 
ticularly when  that  inquiry  is  amateurishly  prose- 
cuted and  carried  only  to  a  sophomoric  stage. 


The  Pulpit's  Estimate  of  the  Pew        71 

I  have,  however,  accomphshed  the  object  which  I 
had  in  view,  if,  instead  of  foohshly  trying  to  cover 
the  entire  territory,  I  have  simply  suggested  some- 
thing as  to  the  extent  of  that  territory,  its  intrinsic 
interest,  and  the  essential  service  which  careful 
acquaintance  with  it  renders  to  the  preacher  in  his 
effort  to  bring  the  hidden  things  of  God  to  the 
hidden  place  in  the  heart  of  man. 


IV 
LOVE  CONSIDERED  AS  A  DYNA^IIC 

The  gospel  is  not  an  idea  but  a  passion,  the  out- 
flow upon  the  world  of  an  infinite  affection.  This 
fact  should  both  detennine  the  spirit  in  which  we 
seek  to  qualify  ourselves  for  the  work  of  the  pulpit 
and  put  its  constant  complexion  upon  the  method 
in  wliich  we  discharge  the  duties  of  the  ministerial 
office. 

I  have  therefore  undertaken  to  say  sometliing 
respecting  the  dynamic  efficiency  of  the  heart,  moved 
thereto  by  the  conviction  that  in  our  attempts  to 
arrive  at  the  secret  of  tilings,  human  and  divine,  an 
over-emphasis  is  laid  upon  educated  thought  and  an 
under-emphasis  laid  upon  cultivated  affection,  and 
that  the  brain  is  allowed  to  crowd  out  the  heart  in 
the  process  of  arriving  at  truth  and  in  the  work  of 
making  truth  effective  in  individual  life  and  in  social 
relation. 

While  we  shall  carefully  guard  against  the  charge 
of  disparaging  the  intellectual  energies,  and  while 
we  have  no  purpose  of  exhibiting  brain  and  heart  as 
though  they  were  mutually  antagonistic,  yet  our 
present  distinct  purpose  is  to  put  to  the   fore  the 


Love  Considered  as  a  Dynamic  73 

claims  of  our  afFectional  nature,  and  that  not  only 
because  of  the  power  that  resides  in  our  emotional 
faculty,  but  because  the  liberal  exercise  of  that 
faculty  is  essential  to  rendering  even  our  intellectual 
attainments  capable  of  the  best  and  largest  results. 

We  are  not  anxious  to  state  what  it  is  exactly  that 
we  mean  by  heart.  There  is  a  broad  meaning  in  the 
word,  and  by  defining  it  we  should  narrow  it.  That 
is  the  effect  of  definition  always.  Definitions  are  in 
this  respect  hke  pictures  of  natural  scenery,  wliich 
always  miss  the  very  thing  most  needed  to  make 
them  complete;  like  a  photograph  of  an  apple 
orchard  in  bloom,  wliich  excludes  both  color  and 
perfume. 

"Heart"  is  a  word  that  is  constantly  recurring  in 
Scripture.  "Brain"  is,  I  believe,  a  term  that  is  not 
once  found  there.  Heart,  in  the  sense  in  which  it  is 
currently  understood,  suggests  the  warm  center  of 
life.  When  we  say  of  a  man  that  he  has  a  good  deal 
of  heart  we  mean  that  he  is  summery ;  he  may  be  bril- 
liant and  he  may  not ;  but  he  is  such  sort  of  a  person 
that  snuggling  up  to  liim  away  from  the  chilly  expo- 
sure, that  there  is  so  much  of,  is  like  getting  around 
upon  the  south  side  of  the  house  in  midwinter,  and 
letting  the  sunshine  feel  of  us,  and  watching  the  snow 
slide  off  the  twigs,  and  the  tear-drops  swell  on  the 
points  of  the  pendent  icicles. 


74  The  Pulpit  axd  the  Pew 

We  are  not  trying  to  be  precise.  Precision  is 
fatal.  But  there  is  what  we  may  call  the  tropical 
side  of  a  man.  There  is  what  admits  of  being  termed 
the  heart  of  civihzation  and  the  heart  of  rehgion,  as 
opposed  to  its  brain  and  gristle.  And  there  is  what, 
without  anytliing  hke  fancifulness,  could  be  desig- 
nated the  tropical  area  of  the  Bible,  as  distinguished 
from  other  portions  that  show  a  lower  temperature 
and  lie  nearer  the  Pole. 

The  emphasis  of  current  thought  lies  on  hght, 
rather  than  on  heat.  A  bright  man  is  hsted  at  a 
higher  figure  than  a  man  with  fervdd  impulses.  Brain 
counts  for  a  good  deal  more  today  than  heart  does. 
It  will  win  more  applause  and  draw  a  larger  salary. 
Emotion  we  are  a  Httle  afraid  of.  We  are  cautioned 
not  to  let  our  feehngs  run  away  with  us.  We  want 
to  know  that  a  conclusion  has  been  reached  in  cold 
blood  before  we  are  disposed  to  submit  our  judgment 
to  it.     Exuberance  is  in  bad  odor. 

We  are  not  disposed  to  surrender  ourselves  to  any 
influence  or  impression  that  we  cannot  intellectually 
construe.  Criticism  deals  with  art,  literature,  and 
even  the  word  of  God  much  in  the  temper  with  which 
a  sur\'eyor  plots  a  piece  of  ground  with  theodohte 
and  chain.  The  current  demand  is  for  ideas.  There 
is  a  great  deal  of  highly  disciphned  intelhgence  that 
finds  its  complete  satisfaction  in  the  mere  process  of 


Love  Considered  as  a  Dynamic  75 

inspecting  such  clever  and  glistening  forms  of  truth 
as  maj^  come  before  it,  and  inspecting  them  with  an 
exclusive  eye  to  their  cleverness  and  ghsten,  some- 
thing perhaps  as  we  look  at  the  stars  and  are  inter- 
ested in  their  brilliancy  without  its  occurring  to  us 
to  wonder  what,  if  anytliing,  they  have  to  do  with  us 
or  we  with  them,  or  whether  there  is  anything  back  of 
their  entertaining  sparkle  that  relates  them  to  us  or 
to  our  world. 

Eyes  are  so  related  to  light  that  luminous  things 
amuse  them.  Intelligence  is  so  related  to  scintillant 
forms  of  truth  that  those  forms  interest  and  enter- 
tain it ;  and  the  entertainment  may  all  be  there 
without  the  thought  ha\dng  begun  even  to  touch  the 
^^tal  tissues  which  the  form  defines  and  conceals.  A 
cold  thought  has  very  little  of  the  power  of  penetra- 
tion in  it.  And  yet  that  is  the  attitude  in  which,  in 
general,  members  of  a  cultivated  community,  educated 
members  of  a  congregation,  are  likel}'  to  stand 
toward  the  truth. 

I  can  cite  as  an  extreme  instance  of  that  the  fact 
that  during  the  four  years  I  was  in  college  I  did  not, 
I  suppose,  hear  more  than  that  number  of  discourses 
that  lifted  my  moral  tone  or  quickened  my  spiritual 
life.  This  is  not  a  reflection  on  the  preaching,  and 
I  do  not  care  to  think  that  it  is  any  reflection  on  me. 
It  means  simply  that  I  brought  to  the  preaching  the 


76  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

same  faculties  of  mind  precisely  that  I  exercised 
during  the  rest  of  the  week  on  Greek  roots  and 
algebraic  equations.  That  is  one  reason  why  the 
work  of  college  chaplains  is  so  often  a  failure,  that 
their  deliverances,  however  true  to  Scripture  and 
however  pat  to  human  needs,  are  so  likely  to  be  sur- 
veyed by  their  hearers  through  purely  intellectual 
spectacles. 

And  what  holds  true  of  a  student  community  is 
true,  only  in  less  degree  perhaps,  of  any  community. 
People  who  have  learned  to  think,  love  to  think,  and 
enjoy  having  something  given  them  that  they  can 
tliink  upon;  something  as  eyes  that  can  see  love  to 
look  at  rockets,  lightning  and  glow-worms.  It  means 
nothing  in  particular.  Any  power  that  we  have  is 
restless  till  opportunity  is  afforded  it  for  exercise. 
But  the  fact  that  one  can  tliink  keenly  and  takes 
pleasure  in  it  is  not  to  be  understood  as  sympto- 
matic, in  any  slightest  degree,  of  interest  in  the 
interior  substance  of  the  truth,  with  whose  delightful 
exterior  it  has  been  so  fascinatedly  busy. 

It  is  something  to  reflect  upon  the  amount  of 
mental  energy  that  a  man  can  expend  upon  matters 
of  Christian  truth,  for  example,  upon  the  verbal 
forms  of  Christian  truth  and  the  relation  of  those 
forms  to  each  other,  without  being  touched,  still 
less  being  quickened,  by  the  realities  that  those  forms 


Love  Coxsidered  as  a  Dynamic  77 

were  intended  to  represent.  When  a  speaker  is 
handling  a  truth,  it  may  be  of  rehgion  or  philosophy, 
or  whatever  else,  if  he  does  it  with  dexterity,  and  if 
in  the  process  his  own  mind  is  quickened  into  unusual 
activity,  his  activity  communicates  itself  to  the  minds 
of  his  hearers,  as  the  movement  of  one  wheel  com- 
municates itself  to  the  companion  wheel  into  .which 
it  gears. 

Some  time  ago  I  asked  a  member  of  my  church 
whether  he  thought  a  certain  friend  of  his  who  had 
lately  taken  to  church-going,  and  who  was  excep- 
tionally brainy,  was  really  becoming  religious.  "Oh, 
no,"  he  said ;  "he  likes  to  hear  preaching  because  he 
has  an  active  mind  and  enjoys  the  way  in  which 
tilings  are  homiletically  laid  out  before  him." 

Mere  intellectual  activity  upon  religious  themes  is 
not  religion  any  more  than  working  a  flying  trapeze 
in  a  church  is  what  the  Bible  means  by  "Godly  exer- 
cise." An  ox  can  devour  the  painting  accidentally 
left  upon  the  easel  in  the  pasture  where  he  is  grazing, 
without  becoming  himself  aesthetic. 

It  is  the  special  function  of  pure  intellect  to  deal 
with  the  forms  of  truth,  to  deal  with  the  shell  within 
wliich  truth  is  encased,  without,  necessarily,  any 
practical  regard  being  had  to  what  the  shell  encloses  ; 
just  as  little  children  can  play  with  diamonds,  and 
yet   if  we   take   away   the   diamonds   and   substitute 


78  The  Pui^pit  and  the  Pew 

cheap  wliite  beads,  there  will  be  no  diminution  of 
their  enjoyment  because  it  is  the  shape  and  the  glisten 
and  not  the  quahty  of  the  interior  substance  that 
amuses  them. 

Matters  of  the  most  serious  moment  can  be  calcu- 
latingly handled;  the  entire  gamut  of  theological 
controversy  can  be  thoughtfully  run;  and  that,  too, 
to  the  maintenance  of  an  unflagging  interest ;  even 
the  great  tilings  of  God  and  of  the  human  soul  can 
be  treated  in  terms  as  adequate  to  such  high  themes 
as  is  possible  to  human  thought,  and  yet  with  no 
stirring  of  those  deep  waters  in  the  human  spirit 
that  underlie  their  fretted  intellectual  surface. 

On  the  contrary,  said  Solomon,  three  thousand 
years  ago,  "The  issues  of  life  are  out  of  the  heart." 
Passion  is  axial.  Heat  is  power.  Heat  is  enginery, 
whatever  be  the  style  or  order  of  macliinery.  In  the 
last  analysis  there  is  scarcely  a  terrestrial  activity  in 
ground,  sea  or  air,  that  does  not  owe  itself  to  that 
great  sphere  of  material  passion  we  call  the  sun. 
The  throb  of  the  sea,  the  currents  of  the  air,  the 
very  coal  on  your  hearth  that  converts  winter  into 
summer  and  turns  evening  into  daytime,  is  old  sun- 
sliine  preserved  in  cold  storage  till  needed  for  present 
effects.  God  means  something  by  all  this.  It  is 
divine  satire  on  cold-bloodedness ;  and  it  is  the  way 
that  nature  takes  to  rebuke  the  notion  that  results  in 


Love  Considered  as  a  Dynamic  79 

the  intellectual,  artistic,  moral  and  spiritual  world 
can  be  hammered  out  by  cold  calculation. 

All  the  best  thoughts  in  the  world,  into  however 
frosty  a  form  they  may  since  have  become  chilled, 
were  molded  from  metal  that  was  once  molten. 
Geology  surmises  that  the  world  began  hot.  So 
every  thought  that  has  had  a  liistory  began  as  a 
passion.  We  can  manufacture  in  cold  weather,  but 
all  creating  is  done  under  a  high  temperature. 

What  is  time  of  thought  is  just  as  true  of  art. 
Art  is  enthusiasm  taken  shape.  The  grand  cathe- 
drals are  old  pulse-beats.  The  master  paintings, 
and  they  are  all  religious,  are  holy  mediaeval  passion 
thrown  upon  canvas.  Art  is  imitative  now  rather 
than  creative  because  the  thermometer  is  down.  We 
can  make  wax  work  with  the  mercury  at  zero,  but 
we  cannot  grow  flowers  there. 

Moses  built  the  tabernacle,  but  he  patterned  it 
from  what  he  gained  a  ghmpse  of  when  he  was  up  in 
the  mount.  We  are  not  criticising  draughting  tools, 
but  we  need  a  vision  of  something  in  the  heavens  with 
which  to  set  those  tools  afire  and  ablaze. 

It  is  the  same  over  again  when  we  skip  from  art  to 
ethics.  Morality  to  be  safe  must  be  impassioned. 
Strictly  speaking  there  is  nothing  statutory  about 
Christianity.  The  only  rules  properly  obligatory 
upon  us  as  Christians  are  those  that  issue  from  the 


80  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

legislative  chamber  of  a  renewed  heart.  Propriety 
under  Moses  was  a  lesson  to  be  learned.  Propriety 
under  Jesus  Christ  is  a  genius,  and  like  all  genius  is 
its  own  law.  No  man  can  be  confidently  counted  on 
to  do  right  tiU  he  does  it  at  the  impulse  of  a  warm 
motive  working  from  within  outward.  As  saith  the 
Lord,  "I  will  put  my  law  in  their  inward  parts  and 
write  it  in  their  hearts,"  the  rockiness  of  Sinai 
transmuted  into  an  inner  passion. 

We  encounter  the  same  again  when  we  cross  over 
from  the  territory  of  morals  to  that  of  theology.  We 
cannot  read  one  of  St.  Paul's  Epistles  without  realiz- 
ing that  it  was  struck  out  at  a  white  heat.  All  the 
evidences  of  temperature  are  both  in  what  he  said 
and  in  the  way  he  said  it.  His  sentences  are  passion- 
ate. If  he  were  to  reappear  among  us  and  preach  in 
his  old  way  he  would  be  given  lessons  in  self-restraint. 
His  thoughts  are  kept  in  steady  glow  by  a  certain 
inward  state  of  combustion  out  from  which,  like  so 
many  flashing  sparks,  his  thoughts  continually  leap. 
His  grammar  breaks  down  under  the  weight  of  what 
he  undertakes  to  load  upon  it.  His  paragraphs 
crack  apart  under  the  strain  of  what  gets  crowded 
into  them.  The  hnks  in  the  chain  of  his  argument 
melt  asunder  by  the  fever  of  the  temperature  at  which 
he  undertakes  to  weld  them.  There  is  nothing  wliich 
suggests  elaboration,  review,  revision. 


Love  Coxsidkred  as  a  Dynamic  81 

That  was  the  way  theology  was  made  1800  years 
ago.  Only  it  was  not  thought  of  as  theology.  We 
never  begin  to  call  religious  truth  theolog}^  till  the 
warm  blood  that  was  in  it  has  commenced  to  cool 
and  to  coagulate,  just  as  we  never  think  of  anatomy 
till  it  is  a  dead  body  that  we  are  handling.  Theology 
is  a  precipitate  from  an  old  religious  experience.  All 
the  theology  that  is  in  the  church  today  is  in  the 
Epistles,  but  it  isn't  there  as  theology.  So  all  the 
bone-dust  that  is  in  the  graveyards  today  was  once 
in  society,  but  it  was  not  there  as  bone-dust. 

Mechanics  is  not  art.  Patching  is  not  creating. 
Doctoring  is  not  regenerating.  Intellect  is  not 
\'ision.  Calculation  is  not  inspiration.  History  is 
not  administered  by  experts.  It  is  heart  that  com- 
poses the  core  of  civilization  and  of  Christianity,  not 
head.  The  mo\'ing  energy  in  the  world's  history 
today  is  not  a  philosophy  but  a  cross.  And  the  con- 
summating act  by  which  Christ  fitted  the  church  for 
its  work  was  not  the  founding  of  a  university,  but  a 
baptism  of  the  church  with  the  Holy  Spirit  and  with 
fire. 

Feelings,  then,  are  the  enginery  of  life,  and  think- 
ings and  actings  and  speakings  the  machiner}^ 
through  which  that  enginery  works  itself  out  into 
accomplished  result.  Other  things  being  equal,  the 
power  and  sweep  of  a  man's  life  will  be  measured  by 


82  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

the  intensity  of  liis  loyalty,  that  is  to  say,  by  the 
heatedness  of  his  devotement  to  the  purposes  he  has 
in  view.  In  every  way  success  is  the  child  of  passion. 
"Whatsoever  ye  do,  do  it  heartily,"  which  is  Paul's 
way  of  discouraging  apathetic  plodders.  What  a 
man  cannot  do  heartily,  at  least  in  the  better  ranges 
of  service,  he  cannot  do.  Success  is  the  product  of 
self-expenditure.  There  is  no  heat  without  combus- 
tion; although  it  should  be  said  that  a  man  has  no 
right  to  burn  himself  up,  for  there  is  always  fuel 
enough  at  hand  to  keep  the  fire  flaming.  Consump- 
tion and  production  are  correlates.  Something  has 
got  to  burn  up.  Success  is  short  for  incineration. 
Passion  is  the  vestibule  to  every  temple,  whether 
devoted  to  God  or  Mammon.  That  holds  in  every  hne 
of  productive  activity,  scholarship,  money-making, 
art,  holiness,  evangehzation.  Enthusiasm  is  the 
road-breaker.  When  you  talk  of  motive  power, 
generating  impulse,  that  is  in  your  bosom,  not  in 
your  skull. 

Christianity  is  in  this  particular  of  a  piece  with 
everything  else.  It  is  an  energy.  It  is  not  an  idea. 
It  is  not  a  picture,  nor  a  philosophy,  nor  a  theology, 
nor  a  memory.  It  is  a  producer,  it  is  spiritual 
dynamic,  and  of  course,  then,  like  everything  else 
that  does  tilings,  begins  in  a  passion;  not  brain, 
although  like  all  passion,  amenable  to  brain ;  like  all 


Love  Considered  as  a  Dynamic  83 

fire,  to  be  restrained  from  becoming  mere  conflagra- 
tion. It  is  a  passion ;  first  of  all,  it  is  the  passion  of 
him  who  "so  loved  the  world  that  he  gave  his  only 
beerotten  Son,  that  whoso  believeth  in  him  should  not 
perish,  but  have  everlasting  life." 

Redemption  is  not  the  outcome  of  God's  intellect. 
It  is  love,  not  thought,  warmth,  not  light.  DiAane 
love  has  been  disclosed  in  intelligent  ways,  but  it  is 
the  love  itself  that  makes  out  the  genius  of  the  matter 
and  that  does  the  work ;  so  that  a  scholar,  purely  as 
such,  can  no  more  accomplish  redemptive  work  than 
a  mathematician,  purely  as  such,  can  become  a  foun- 
tain of  personal  baptism,  or  than  the  polar  zone  can 
grow  flowers. 

It  is  the  passion  of  love,  derivative  from  him  who 
is  himself  love,  that  is  driving  the  gospel  machinery 
the  whole  world  over.  Argumentation  is  not  an 
energ3^  Love  is.  Love  is  a  peculiar,  forceful  exer- 
cise of  personality,  whether  of  God  or  of  man,  that 
works  in  the  human  sphere  with  effects  like  those  that 
are  wrought  in  the  works  of  nature  b}'  the  inflowing 
upon  it  of  warm  sunshine  and  the  south  wind.  Such 
analogies  help  us  a  little  to  appreciate  its  meaning, 
but  it  is  not  a  thing  to  be  defined,  only  we  can  say 
that  love  is  a  warm,  subduing  force,  something  very 
positive,  a  kind  of  tropical  pressure  wliich  a  heart 
that   is   full   of   summer  temperature   exercises   over 


84  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

other  hearts  that  are  still  bound  under  the  frosty 
fetters  of  self-interest,  and  of  those  icy  bonds  of  an 
evil  mind  that  are  sure  to  develop  themselves  in  an 
atmosphere  that  is  ungenial  and  cold. 

It  is  the  impassioned  men  that  have  made  history 
always,  religious  and  secular  both.  They  are  pulse 
to  the  general  body  that  is  listless  and  waiting.  No 
man  has  moved  the  world  like  Jesus  Christ,  because 
no  one  beside  him  has  embodied  so  wise,  so  warm,  so 
divine  an  enthusiasm.  It  costs  more  than  thinking,  it 
wears  more.  An  affection,  if  one's  entire  soul  be 
invested  in  it,  takes  more  out  of  one  than  an  idea 
does.  Our  loves  we  coin  from  our  hearts,  our  ideas 
we  make  up  principally  as  we  go  along. 

Hence  it  comes  about  that  Christianity  easily 
degenerates  from  a  condition  of  fervid  love  to  God 
and  man  into  a  condition  of  highly  organized  intel- 
lectual interest  in  problems  of  religious  or  social  or 
economic  truth.  Ministers  preach  political  economy 
from  their  pulpits  only  when  the  fires  of  Christian 
devotion  have  become  extinct.  It  has  always  been 
so.  So  long  as  feehngs  remain  feelings  there  is  no 
disposition  to  analyze  and  classify  them,  or  to  con- 
struct them  into  a  system.  It  would  have  been  as 
impossible  to  make  a  creed  on  the  day  of  Pentecost 
as  it  would  have  been  for  Peter  to  kodak  a  photo- 
graph of  Moses  and  Elias  on  the  Mount  of  Trans- 


Love  Considered  as  a  Dynamic  85 

figuration.  There  was  too  much  in  the  air.  A  drop 
of  blood  has  to  be  taken  out  of  the  vein  before  there 
will  be  any  disposition  to  count  its  corpuscles. 

We  who  have  any  experimental  knowledge  of  the 
gospel  realize  that  it  is  God's  own  passion  of  love 
that  carries  with  it  and  draws  after  it  all  that  is 
essential  to  the  production  of  perfected  Christian 
character  and  life.  And  as  love  is  love  in  both 
worlds,  upon  no  other  spiritual  sustenance  can  the 
preacher  be  more  wlsel}^  or  confidently  fed,  or  with 
greater  assurance  and  constancy  nourish  the  lives  of 
those  to  whom  he  ministers. 

There  are  some  things  that  we  can  talk  about  but 
that  we  do  not  experience.  On  the  contrary,  there 
are  some  things  which  we  experience,  but  which  we 
cannot  as  easily  talk  about.  Love  is  of  the  latter 
kind.  We  see  its  workings ;  we  feel  its  workings.  It 
is  like  gravity,  Avhich  no  one  explains,  but  which  is 
the  name  that  we  give  to  the  disposition  that  objects 
of  the  same  nature  have  of  drawing  toward  one 
another.  The  word  gravity  is  a  convenient  one, 
but  explains  nothing.  The  word  love  is  a  very  con- 
venient one,  but  explains  nothing.  The  fact,  though, 
that  it  stands  for  is  a  large  one.  We  would  like  to 
know  more  about  it,  but  we  can  experience  it  and  we 
do,  and  that  is  the  richest  kind  of  knowing. 

But  it  is  the  drawing  toward  one  another  of  two 


86  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

souls — gravity  translated  into  the  spiritual  world. 
Souls  that  love  recognize  themselves  in  each  other. 
Much  more  than  that  we  cannot  say, — not  yet; 
perhaps  we  can  sometime.  It  is  pleasant  to  remember 
that  eternity  is  going  to  be  so  long  that  we  shall  have 
time  to  find  out  about  things. 

But  to  find  ourselves  reflected  in  each  other  is  a 
mutual  tribute,  and  implies  an  underlying  oneness 
and  a  certain  amount  of  equality.  You  can  love  a 
person  who  is  inferior  to  yourself,  and  yet  you  love 
liim  because  you  find  in  him  something  that  is  equal  to 
what  is  the  best  in  yourself :  and  that  gives  the  touch 
of  equality.  And  without  that  touch  of  equality, 
without  that  sense  of  a  certain  comradeship,  there  can 
be  no  true  intercommunication  between  person  and 
person.  Genuine  education  is  an  exchange  of 
personalities. 

It  is  only  in  the  act  and  relation  of  love  that  you 
and  another  personally  touch  and  can  perfectly  com- 
mune. It  is  the  only  existing  relation  in  which  the 
centers  of  two  separate  souls  become  coincident  in 
such  way  that  there  can  be  an  unobstructed  flow  from 
one  to  the  other. 

There  is  certainly  a  kind  of  mutual  access  and 
companionship  in  identity  of  opinion,  in  similarity  of 
taste,  in  resemblance  of  occupation.  And  yet  two 
people  may  think  alike  and  still  be  far  apart.     Two 


Love  Considered  as  a  Dynamic  87 

men  working  side  by  side  in  the  same  occupation  may 
yet  be  li^^ng  in  different  worlds  and  each  be  exempt 
from  the  other's  influence. 

It  will  sei-%'e  our  purpose  also  to  notice  tliat  two 
souls  do  not  come  into  contact  when  there  is  merely 
the  exercise  of  authority  on  the  part  of  one  over  the 
other.  When  you  give  a  command  to  your  servant, 
even  though  he  obey,  you  have  touched  him  only  in 
his  act,  not  in  his  personality.  Authority  is  likely  to 
preclude  rather  than  to  promote  unhindered  exchange 
between  the  two.  A  servant  may  love  his  master,  but 
not  because  he  is  his  master,  but  in  spite  of  it.  The 
whip  may  burn  the  flesh,  but  it  does  not  warm  the 
soul,  rather  freezes  it.  Mount  Sinai  was  hard  and 
cold  and  was  particularly  valuable  in  showing  what  it 
was  incompetent  to  do.  It  was  a  vast,  colossal 
menace,  a  kind  of  immense  divine  frown — made  only 
the  more  awful  bv  the  lightnings  which  illuminated 
it,  and  the  thunders  with  which  it  reverberated. 

It  would  seem  that  a  man  as  thoughtful  as  ]\Ioses 
would  have  felt  at  the  time  as  though  some  experi- 
ment— perhaps  we  ought  rather  to  say  some  expe- 
dient— less  flinty  than  Sinai  would  have  to  be  adopted 
before  God  and  mankind  would  come  to  any  fair 
understanding  with  each  other,  and  before  God  would 
avail  to  gain  a  grasp  upon  man's  interior  life. 

We  were  just  saying  that  the  relation  of  love  is  the 


88  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

only  one  in  wliich  the  centers  of  two  separate  souls 
become  coincident  in  such  a  way  that  there  can  be  an 
unobstructed  flow  from  one  to  the  other.  There  is 
more  that  is  fine  and  effective  in  this  intercommunica- 
tion between  souls  than  we  sometimes  recognize.  You 
touch  the  organ  key  and  the  pipe  sings  to  you.  You 
touch  the  harpstring  and  it  becomes  musically 
tremulous.  You  speak  to  the  ear  or  address  the  eye 
and  there  returns  to  you  a  look  of  recognition. 
Everything  is  a  kind  of  instrument  waiting  to  be 
played  upon. 

The  spirit  is  also  an  instrument,  most  delicate  in 
its  make,  most  sensitive  in  its  responsiveness.  The 
time  is  mostly  passed  when  people  doubted  the  fact 
of  one  mind  telling  upon  another  mind,  one  spirit 
upon  another  spirit.  It  is  so  evidently  the  case  that 
the  mystery  of  it  no  longer  shatters  or  even  shakes 
our  belief  in  it. 

The  influence — that  is  to  say  the  inflowing — of 
one  upon  another  is  one  of  the  incontestible  facts,  and 
how  effective  the  working  of  that  influence  will  be  will 
depend  upon  how  near  to  the  center  of  the  personal 
life  it  is  able  to  come  and  exert  itself.  The  eff^ects 
that  we  take  from  others  are  sometimes  of  quite  a 
superficial  and  therefore  transitory  character.  They 
pass  over  us  as  a  shadow  passes  over  us,  leaving  no 
print    behind,    or    at    least,    no    recognizable    print. 


Love  Considkukd  as  a  Dynamic  89 

Other  influences  penetrate  into  a  somewhat  deeper 
stratum  of  experience  and  life  and  become  perma- 
nently woven  into  life's  tissues. 

In  that  way  we  are  continually  receiving  importa- 
tions introduced  into  us  by  the  remote  approach  to 
us,  or  the  closer  contact  with  us,  of  the  people  among 
whom  we  live  and  move;  so  that  we  are,  to  a  very 
considerable  extent,  a  mass  of  quotation.  Were  it 
possible,  it  would  be  an  interesting  and  curious  pro- 
cess to  dissect  ourselves  mentally,  morally  and  spirit- 
ually and  to  discover  to  whom  we  are  indebted  for 
this,  that  and  the  other  ingredient,  respectively,  of 
wliich  we  are  composed. 

Among  the  variety  of  operative  influences,  that 
which  goes  deepest  is  affection.  It  finds  its  way  where 
nothing  else  will.  Wliile  perhaps  there  is  a  hidden 
spot  in  each  life  that  is  sacred  only  to  itself  and  the 
heavenly  Spirit,  yet  love  comes  nearer  to  reacliing 
that  spot  than  any  other  influence.  And  the  point 
especially  to  be  made  is,  that  it  not  only  reaches 
there,  but  that  it  works  there.  For  love  is  not  merely 
a  sentiment  cherished  by  the  party  who  loves,  but  I 
w^ould  like  to  represent  it  as  a  kind  of  personal  cur- 
rent passing  from  the  one  who  loves  to  the  object  of 
that  love. 

The  matter  is  too  serious  and  too  far-reaching  in 
its  bearing  to  indulge  in  any  fanciful  treatment  of 


90  The  Pulpit  axd  the  Pew 

it,  and  when  I  represent  affection  as  a  kind  of  per- 
sonal current  of  influence  I  mean  just  that. 

If  you  take  a  potted  plant  that  has  been  standing 
in  the  shade  till  it  begins  to  show  the  discouraged 
aspect  incident  to  being  confined  in  a  dark  place,  and 
then  remove  it  to  a  spot  where  fresh  air,  warmed  by 
the  sunshine,  can  drift  across  it,  you  certainly  attri- 
bute the  consequent  altered  aspect  to  the  new,  clear, 
genial  light  and  warmth  that  you  have  allowed  it  to 
respire. 

Without  undertaking  to  explain  how  it  is  that  a 
more  brilliant  and  tropical  atmosphere  can  so  insinu- 
ate itself  into  the  plant,  and  so  mix  itself  in  its  Hfe, 
as  to  create  there  a  kind  of  resurrection,  you  never- 
theless accept  the  fact  and  do  not  consider  that  you 
are  indulging  in  fanciful  ideas  or  fanciful  language 
when  you  say  that  between  the  sunny  air  and  the 
flower  there  has  been  the  actual  passage  of  some  kind 
of  influence  that  has  penetrated  the  plant  and  that 
has  worked  witliin  it  encouragingly  and  quickeningly. 

What  is  more,  it  works  in  the  plants  all  kinds  of 
result,  not  limiting  itself  to  one  special  variety  of 
effect.  It  not  only  puts  fresh  verdancy  on  the  leaves, 
but  a  brighter  tint  in  the  blossoms,  and  a  general 
revived  appearance  as  though  it  had  in  some  way  been 
created  anew  and  been  born  again.  The  mystery  of 
this  universal  inner  working  we  become  accustomed 


Love  Considered  as  a  Dynamic  91 

to  and  do  not  stop  to  explain,  and  simply  let  it  pass 
b}'  saying  that  if  you  want  your  plant  to  grow  and 
blossom  keep  it  in  the  sunshine. 

Now  it  is  one  of  nature's  secrets  that  by  a  single 
influence  it  can  produce  such  a  divei'sity  of  result ; 
but  the  same  thing  precisely  occurs  over  again,  only 
in  a  finer  and  more  fascinating  way,  if  we  transfer 
our  attention  from  plant  life  to  what  goes  on  in  the 
life  and  growth  of  the  spirit  when  the  vernal  influence 
of  aff^ection  is  allowed  access  to  it.  It  is  apparent  in 
the  home  and  in  the  schoolroom.  A  summer-like  do- 
mestic atmosphere  operates  in  all  variety  of  ways  to 
the  child's  upbringing  and  uplifting.  In  such 
environment  everything  that  is  in  the  father  and 
mother,  especially  in  the  mother,  tends  to  duplicate 
itself  in  the  child.  First  of  all,  it  mellows  the  child's 
sensibilities.  The  mother's  love  tends  to  become  the 
child's  own  love.  It  is  a  common  thing  to  say  that 
love  begets  love.  That  expression  has  become  pro- 
verbial and  so  we  speak  it  carelessly,  but  it  is  exactly 
the  point  that  I  am  just  now  trying  to  make.  Paren- 
tal affection  is  an  inflowing  and  tends  to  foster  the 
rudiments  of  filial  aff'ection. 

But  the  same  genial  atmosphere  operates  to  pro- 
mote in  the  offspring  whatever  other  gifts  and  graces 
distinguish  the  parents.  For  affection  is  a  current 
that    carries    over    T^-ith   it    whatever    freio-htaffe    is 


92  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

loaded  upon  it  at  the  source  from  whence  it  flows.  So 
that  in  such  a  home  the  intelhgence  of  the  father  and 
mother  become  duphcated  in  the  cliild's  mental  long- 
ings and  inquiries,  and  the  hearthstone  becomes  the 
most  perfect  seminary  in  all  the  world,  and  all  the 
more  beauteous  for  being  so  natural  and  delicate, 
a  seminary  in  miniature. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  in  such  tempera- 
ture of  parental  affection  the  moral  and  religious 
impulses  most  naturally  and  unaffectedly  secure 
their  germination  and  development.  A  loving  home, 
presided  over  by  a  father  and  mother,  who  are  at  the 
same  time  priest  and  priestess  of  the  mysteries  of 
God  and  of  His  Son,  Jesus  Christ,  is  almost  certainly 
destined  to  prove  to  be  a  little  church, — a  little 
home,  a  little  state  and  a  little  church,  all  in  one,  and 
therefore  the  rudiment  of  all  that  is  finest  and  sweet- 
est in  the  collective  life  of  the  world. 

But  we  cannot  conclude  this  lecture  without  briefly 
adding  to  the  foregoing  the  fact  that  love  is  not 
only  an  energy  but  also  an  intuition.  Love  is  vision 
as  well  as  force.  It  is  like  a  sunbeam  which  not  only 
puts  a  complexion  upon  the  surface,  but  perforates 
and  externalizes  what  is  hidden. 

This  is  true  in  the  relation  of  man  to  man.  There 
is  a  kind  of  knowledge  which  we  gain  of  each  other 
while  standing  to  one  another  in  an  attitude  of  cold 


Love  Considered  as  a  Dynamic  93 

speculation,  but  it  is  only  when  Ave  enter  into 
another's  life  along  the  track  of  sympathy  that  we 
secure  for  ourselves  genuine  admission.  There  is  not 
in  thought  that  susceptibility  that  can  feel  what  is 
hidden  beneath  the  surface.  Thought  brings  us  near 
to  people,  almost  within  touch  of  people,  but  does 
not  penetrate.  We  are  like  the  electrons  which  com- 
pose an  atom  and  wliich  revolve  about  one  another 
at  a  terrific  rate  of  speed,  but  that  never  come  quite 
into  actual  contact  with  each  other.  Distance  seems 
to  be  the  law  of  nature ;  but  love  is  supernature,  skips 
the  distances,  and  reaches  the  goal. 

But  it  is  true  also  in  the  relation  of  man  to  God. 
Let  it  be  said  in  all  reverence  that  man  and  God  are 
a  good  deal  ahke,  ought  to  be  if  we  are  his  offspring. 
Love  is  the  same  in  both  realms,  has  in  both  the  same 
efficiency,  whether  as  a  force  or  as  an  intuition.  We 
cannot  perfectly  find  out  each  other  by  studying  each 
other,  but  by  loving  each  other ;  neither  can  we,  say 
the  Scriptures,  find  out  God  by  searching.  We  can 
reason  torvard  him  but  we  cannot  reason  to  him.  The 
story  of  the  electrons  over  again :  revolution  but  not 
contact. 

St.  John  lived  eighteen  hundred  years  before  Her- 
bert Spencer,  but  he  could  have  taught  Herbert 
Spencer  lessons,  if  the  latter  had  not  been  so  enam- 
ored of  his  own  philosophy  as  to  be  oblivious  of  St. 


94  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

Jolin's  Gospel,  for,  wrote  the  Apostle,  "He  that 
loveth,  knoweth  God."  Spencer  was  sound  perhaps 
on  his  own  grounds,  but  there  are  more  things  in 
heaven  and  earth  than  were  dreamt  of  in  his  philoso- 
phy. We  are  not  criticising  liis  philosophy ;  only  in  a 
domain  as  universal  as  the  truth,  it  is  better  not  to 
enclose  human  speculations  witliin  fences  that  cast 
what  is  verj^  likely  to  be  the  larger  part  of  truth  into 
realms  of  outer  darkness. 

Love  then,  according  to  St.  Jolui,  is  a  form  of 
vision,  a  mode  of  unliindered  intuition  that  travels 
everywhere,  everywhere  in  the  realm  of  spirit,  finds 
its  way  into  heart,  wherever  heart  is,  a  species  of 
spiritual  telescope  that  can  sweep  the  four  quadrants, 
that  can  be  turned  upon  what  is  near  the  ground  or 
focused  upon  what  lies  in  the  sky,  admitting  us  to  the 
fellowship  of  our  brethren  and  letting  us  into  the 
intimacies  of  our  Heavenly  Father.  I  suppose  the 
Epistles  of  St.  Paul  are  more  attractive  to  the  bare 
intellect  of  the  world  than  the  Gospel  of  St.  John, 
but  St.  John's  Gospel  lies  closer  to  the  world's  life, 
and  even  St.  Paul  had  to  admit  that  "the  greatest  of 
these  is  love." 


MINISTERIAL  RESPONSIBILITY  FOR  CIVIC 

CONDITIONS 

Two  vitalized  institutions,  though  they  be  as  dis- 
tinct as  Church  and  State,  cannot  exist  in  contact 
without  being  mutually  influential.  Each  will  tell 
upon  the  other.  They  may  tell  too  much.  They  may 
tell  too  little.  They  may  tell  mistakenly,  but  they 
will  tell.  And  the  question  that  I  attempt  to  handle 
today  is,  To  what  extent,  and  in  what  way  the 
Church,  at  the  inspiration  of  the  ministry  and  under 
its  leadersliip,  is  authorized  to  exert  a  determining 
influence  upon  civic  life. 

Whatever  my  relation  to  the  Church,  I  have  no 
ambition  to  see  its  influence  extended  over  territory 
that  does  not  belong  to  it ;  but  it  is  important  to 
realize  what  its  proper  territory  is,  and  how  much 
there  is  of  it.  And  it  is  furthermore  important  to  get 
industriously  to  work  occupying  that  territory, 
covering  it  with  the  best  thought  we  know  how  to 
think  and  to  utter,  and  with  the  most  discreet  and 
vigorous  actirity  we  know  how  to  exercise. 

There  seems  to  be  a  particular  propriety  in 
urging  this  point  just  at  this  time.     The  condition 


96  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

of  things  in  our  larger  cities,  which  are  the  con- 
trolhng  centers  and  the  stomi-centers  of  American 
life,  is  one  of  continual  menace.  The  causes  operat- 
ing to  make  them  so  it  does  not  lie  within  the  scope  of 
my  present  purpose  to  enumerate.  Mr.  Bryce  has 
specifically  designated  them  as  our  nation's  danger- 
points. 

It  is  not  becoming  us  as  Christians  to  worry  about 
the  situation,  any  more  than  it  is  the  suitable  atti- 
tude of  the  Christian  mind  to  worry  in  regard  to 
any  other  matter  of  concern.  Worrying  about  what 
is  evil  simply  exhausts  the  power  that  might  other- 
wise be  employed  in  helping  to  correct  the  evil.  And 
yet  frankly  the  political  situation  is  bad.  Periodic 
spasms  of  virtue — virtue  so  extreme  as  to  be  almost 
painful — do  not  take  the  place  of  a  steady  growth  in 
virtue. 

What  then  can  the  Church  do.?  Do  anything 
reasonable  that  it  sets  its  heart  and  hands  to.  The 
Church  lacks  the  courage  of  its  convictions,  and  is 
possessed  of  a  purpose  almost  infinitely  narrower 
than  its  opportunities.  It  is  timid,  and  so  loosely 
consohdated  that  the  organized  political  influences 
of  the  State  foster  that  timidity.  Solidity  of  organi- 
zation is  everywhere  and  always  the  secret  of  result. 
A  handful  of  compacted  Spaniards  had  no  difficulty 
in  rending  the  laxly  welded  power  of  the  host  of  Mexi- 


Responsibility  roii  Civic  Conditions         97 

cans  under  Cortez  four  centuries  ago,  which  would 
other\Nnse  have  been  irresistible. 

Then  again  the  Church  is  so  afraid  of  doing  what 
is  not  ecclesiastically  proper,  that  it  leaves  undone  a 
host  of  things  that  it  is  ecclesiastically  wicked  for  it 
to  neglect,  and  has  grown  more  or  less  oblivious  of 
the  times  when,  under  the  Hebrew  Theocracy,  the 
Church  was  the  State,  prophets  the  law-givers  and 
statesmen,  and  civic  administration  recognized  as 
leaning  back  directly  upon  the  throne  of  God.  I  am 
not  pleading  for  a  revival  of  the  Old  Hebrew  The- 
ocracy, but  God's  throne  has  to  be  brought  into  the 
business  somehow,  and  not  expediency,  but  righteous- 
ness, made  the  central  column  around  which  the  social 
structure  shall  cluster.  That  is  the  ideal  which  is  to 
be  steadily  held  in  front  of  our  thought  and  purpose, 
and  it  is  an  important  function  of  the  pulpit  to  lead 
the  Church  intelligently  and  inspiringly  as  well  as 
unrestingly  toward  the  achievement  of  that  ideal. 

The  Church,  in  times  past  and  to  a  very  consider- 
able extent  even  yet,  has,  through  its  ministerial 
representatives,  laid  an  awkward  and  too  exclusive 
emphasis  upon  the  salvation  of  individuals,  forgetting 
that  in  St.  John's  vision  of  "the  city  come  Aovra  from 
God"  is  taught  the  truth  that  the  final  destiny  of  the 
race  is  to  find  its  consummation  in  a  redeemed  com- 
monwealth, not  in  a  disintegrated  mob  of  converted 


98  The  Pulpit  and  the  PE\y 

individualities,  and  that  when  Christ  talks  about  the 
kingdom  of  heaven,  he  is  thinking  of  the  reconstruc- 
tion of  society,  not  merely  of  a  miscellaneous  crowd 
of  men  and  women  separately  labeled  for  transporta- 
tion to  a  realm  unknown.  There  is  a  sense  doubtless 
in  which  souls  have  to  be  saved  one  at  a  time,  and 
that  I  shall  notice  tomorrow,  but  even  so  an  individual 
is  a  mere  vulgar  fraction  till  he  is  gathered  in  with 
liis  fellows  to  form  an  organized  whole. 

There  has  been  with  many  so  much  more  disposi- 
tion to  consider  religion  as  a  kind  of  passport  to  a 
heavenly  world  situated  somewhere  in  the  future  than 
purpose  to  make  the  present  world  heavenly  today, 
that  where  we  are  now  has  been  treated  rather  as  a 
place  to  get  out  of  than  as  one  to  remain  in,  with  a 
view  to  making  it  so  pleasant  that  one  would  not  care 
to  get  out  of  it  at  all. 

It  has  always  seemed  to  me  that  the  fact  stated  in 
Scripture  that  Christ  spent  the  interval  between  liis 
death  and  liis  resurrection  in  the  attempt  to  improve 
and  brighten  up  the  underworld,  ought  to  be  accepted 
by  us  as  indication  that  there  is  nothing  so  bad  as  not 
to  be  redeemable,  that  in  whatever  place  we  are  put  it 
is  selfish  and  cowardly  to  regard  it  as  a  point  of 
escape,  and  that  it  is  a  mean  kind  of  evasion  in  any 
man  when  his  first  thought  in  regard  to  the  spot  he  is 
now  occup3ang  is  that  it  offers  means  of  access  to 


Responsibility  for  Civic  Conditions         99 

another  spot  that  he  expects  to  like  better  and  to 
find  more  comfortable. 

To  treat  the  place  or  the  position  that  we  are 
filhng  at  present  as  a  stepping-stone  to  a  more  capa- 
cious place  or  a  more  responsible  position,  tends  to 
disqualify  us  for  that  position  should  we  ever  be 
elevated  to  it.  That  appHes  to  young  ministers 
settled  in  a  small  parish  as  well  as  to  the  larger 
matter  which  we  have  just  now  under  consideration. 

One  fact  tending  to  the  disheartenment  of  minis- 
terial leaders  seeking  to  champion  a  movement  look- 
ing to  better  conditions  in  society  and  State  is  that 
good  people,  so  many  of  them,  display  such  a  lack 
of  staying  power.  Depravity  is  always  sprightly, 
never  gets  discouraged,  never  knows  when  it  is  beaten, 
never  becomes  worried  and  tired  and  retires  from  the 
field  to  recuperate. 

A  wicked  man  grown  old  in  wickedness  will  do  a 
bad  thing  in  as  fresh  and  enthusiastic  a  way  as 
though  it  were  the  first  time  he  had  done  it.  There 
is  about  it  all  an  exhaustless  spontaneity  that  is 
fascinating.  You  almost  hesitate  to  find  fault  with 
a  bad  man  for  misbehaving,  he  does  it  so  well  and  so 
cheerfull3^  Virtue,  on  the  contrary,  is  likely  to 
carry  upon  it  the  aspect  of  pulling  up  grade.  Half 
of  the  man  goes  up  and  the  other  half  stays  down  so 
that  he  does  not  really  get  anywhere. 


100  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

Virtue  cannot  ordinarily  be  relied  upon  as  con- 
fidently as  vice  to  maintain  its  interest  in  the  cause 
it  is  devoted  to.  So  far  as  relates  to  civic  matters 
Christians  are  Christians  only  during  the  months  of 
September  and  October  and  the  first  week  of  Novem- 
ber. Politicians  are  politicians  all  the  year  round. 
"Patient  continuance  in  well  doing"  is  a  text  that  it 
is  becoming  to  the  pulpit  to  use  with  a  good  deal  of 
freedom  and  frequency. 

Few  people  seem  able  to  keep  holy  indignation 
steadily  in  stock.  Indignation  is  exceedingly  tiring 
and  consuming.  It  is  only  the  saints  that  require  to 
have  inculcated  the  doctrine  of  perseverance.  There 
are  a  great  many  graces  and  potencies  of  character 
that  have  a  very  direct  relevancy  to  public  matters, 
and  the  pulpit  will  leave  part  of  its  duty  undone  save 
as  it  publishes  those  graces  and  potencies  in  their 
distinct  relation  to  such  matters. 

On  a  critical  day  in  the  history  of  a  town  or  city 
virtue  is  more  afraid  of  getting  wet  than  iniquity, 
more  susceptible  to  atmospheric  changes.  Vice  will 
go  to  the  polls  on  foot ;  virtue  waits  to  be  carried. 
Christians  think  as  much  of  their  religion  as  sinners 
do  of  their  commodity,  but  are  more  economical  in 
their  use  of  it. 

This  economy  in  matters  of  public  life  comes 
perhaps  in  part  from  supposing  that  in  civic  con- 


Responsibility  for  Civic  Conditions       101 

cerns  the  ordinary  moral  obligations  are  not  strictly 
applicable.  It  is  a  good  deal  of  an  undertaking  to 
serve  God  in  everything  and  rather  a  relief  to  secu- 
larize a  part  of  his  kingdom  and  thus  to  find  a  little 
neutral  territory  to  play  in  where  God  is  not  felt  to 
be  standing  by  and  looking  on,  and  wh(^r<^  'or\€,  call 
do  as  one  likes  and  God  not  care. 

That  was  the  situation  as  recorded  m'  Scriptiure ,' 
when  the  Hebrews  commenced  clamoring  for  a  king. 
The  prophet  Samuel  had  held  them  with  a  tighter  rein 
than  was  altogether  comfortable  and  they  reasoned 
that  if  in  pohtical  matters  they  could  have  a  ruler 
that  was  less  of  a  prophet  and  more  like  the  common 
run  of  people,  they  would  be  saved  the  trouble,  so 
far  forth,  of  behaving  otherwise  than  as  was  con- 
venient. In  modern  terms,  their  ambition  was  for  the 
secularization  of  their  civics. 

So  that  the  eighth  chapter  of  the  First  Book  of 
Samuel  is  another  section  of  the  armory  of  Scripture 
truth  from  which  the  pulpit  can  draw  in  dealing  with 
Christians  in  their  relation  to  the  State,  for  no  more 
now  than  in  Samuel's  days  is  there  the  willingness  to 
have  the  territory  of  ci\ic  concern  recognized  as 
lying  fully  inside  the  domain  of  divine  government. 

And  yet  at  least  nine  tenths  of  the  questions  that 
come  within  the  range  of  political  life  are  ethical  in 
their  very  tissue,  and  thus  fall  as  definitely  within 


102  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

the  legitimate  scope  of  the  modern  prophet  as  they 
did  within  that  of  Moses,  Samuel  or  Elijah.  That 
position,  however,  is  not  sustained  by  pubHc  senti- 
ment. That  I  have  learned  to  my  own  embarrass- 
ment and  sorrow.  There  exists  a  widely  prevaihng 
prejudicre  against  anything  being  said  inside  of  the 
saTictuary  about  matters  that  are  distinctly  civic, 
except  perhaps  to  the  extent  of  prayer  being  offered 
in  behalf  of  the  President  and  those  who  are  asso- 
ciated with  him  in  authority.  It  is  agreed  to  allow 
to  the  pulpit  somewhat  more  leewa}-  on  days  of 
national  fasting  and  thanksgiring,  for  the  reason,  I 
suppose,  that  those  occasions  are  considered  as  pos- 
sessing only  a  fraction  of  sabbatical  sanctity,  allow- 
ing  therefore  a  percentage  of  secularity  sufficient  for 
putting  in  a  little  work  regarding  such  matters  as 
legislators,  aldermen  and  mayors. 

WTiat  makes  this  conservative  attitude  so  inexplic- 
able is  that  no  one  objects  to  pulpit  disquisitions  on 
the  bad  civic  conditions  that  existed  three  or  four 
thousand  years  ago,  and  on  the  tricky  politicians 
and  scheming  demagogues  that  manipulated  those 
conditions  to  their  own  advantage.  Even  that  is  a 
tacit  confession,  both  on  the  part  of  the  pew  and  the 
pulpit,  that  in  the  days  of  Moses,  Darid  and  Ehjah 
the  king-dom  of  God  embraced  the  State  and  all  civic 


Responsibility  for  Civic  Conditions      103 

interests  as  much  as  it  did  the  Tabernacle  and  the 
Ark  of  the  Covenant. 

But  under  onhnarj  conditions,  when  the  civic 
temperature  is  only  normal,  and  the  occasion  is  not 
one  of  national  appointment,  and  election  is  still 
some  months  away,  and  the  Ahabs  and  Jereboams  are 
pushing  their  schemes  with  only  moderate  enthusiasm, 
homiletical  references  to  civic  concerns  are  commonly 
regarded  as  out  of  taste  and  as  a  postponement  of 
the  interests  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven  to  those  that 
that  kingdom  is  not  much  interested  in  and  has 
nothing  in  particular  to  do   with. 

While  saying  this,  it  should  at  the  same  time  be 
conceded  that  there  is  what  I,  from  my  point  of  view, 
should  consider  a  wholesome  broadening  of  sermonic 
interest  over  a  wider  range  of  territory.  Religion 
is  coextensive  with  life,  and  while  it  is  not  to  be  sup- 
posed that  any  accredited  member  of  our  faith  would 
take  everything  into  the  pulpit,  there  seems  in  that 
no  sufficient  reason  wh}^  he  should  not  take  the  pulpit 
into  everything. 

My  conception  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  of 
something  that  just  at  this  present  time  is  particu- 
larly concerned  in  what  is  going  on  at  present,  in 
today's  Ahabs  and  Jezebels,  rather  than  in  antiquated 
ones,  and  in  events  that  make  up  the  national  life  of 
today  rather  than  in  those  that  are  only  the  outworn 


lO-i  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

remains  of  peoples  that  are  obsolete ;  it  being  always 
understood,  however,  that  such  themes  are  germane 
to  the  pulpit  only  when  they  are  not  introduced 
there  with  a  xievr  to  what  are  known  as  sensational 
effects,  effects,  that  is,  which  are  for  the  purpose  of 
sensation,  rather  than  in  pursuit  of  results  wliich 
properly  aroused  feeling  is  calculated  to  produce. 
In  the  conservative  sense  of  the  word  preaching  is 
not  preaching  unless  it  is  sensational. 

The  duty  of  the  twentieth  century,  as  much  as  it 
was  the  duty  of  Elijah  and  Jeremiah,  is  to  take 
eternal  principle,  and  to  measure  existing  conditions 
and  institutions  against  the  principle  as  standard  and 
as  frankly  and  eloquently  as  possible  to  declare  the 
amount  of  discrepancy  between  the  two. 

That  does  not  involve  entering  into  the  discussion 
of  pohtical  technicalities  that  have  no  direct  and 
e\'ident  relationship  with  ethics,  nor  into  the  discus- 
sion of  methods  of  administration  or  matters  of  legis- 
lation so  far  as  no  distinct  moral  principle  is 
involved.  But  as  already  said,  nine  tenths  of  the 
entire  matter  is  wrought  out  of  moral  ingredients, 
and  wherever  that  is  the  case  the  Church  itself,  and 
the  Church  under  the  leadership  of,  and  in  coopera- 
tion with,  its  chosen  ministerial  representatives,  has 
sometliing  to  say  and  is  disloyal  to  itself,  and  above 
all  to  its  Di^-ine  Head,  if  it  does  not  say  it. 


Responsibility  for  Civic  Conditions       105 

That  is  the  way  I  feel  about  it.  And  when  I  see 
in  all  our  large  cities,  New  York,  Pliiladelpliia, 
Chicago,  St.  Louis,  Cincinnati,  churches  by  the  hun- 
dreds throwing  their  distinctive  emphasis  on  a  heaven 
that  is  going  to  come  by  and  by,  and  on  iniquity  that 
prevailed  thirty  centuries  and  more  ago,  dangling 
little  spotless  babies  over  a  Christian  font  but  dumb 
as  an  ojster  to  conditions  that  ruin  children  and 
youth  faster  than  we  can  baptize  them,  I  am  pretty 
sure  that  the  Church  is  false  to  its  calling,  a  traitor 
to  its  prerogatives,  and  condemned  by  its  failure  to 
do  what  it  was  divinely  organized  to  do. 

It  is  the  kingdoms  of  this  zcorld.  Scripture  tells 
us,  that  are  to  become  the  kingdom  of  our  Lord,  and 
of  his  Christ.  So  that  it  makes  exceedingly  little 
difference  how  many  individual  converts  the  churches 
make  in  a  year,  if  in  the  course  of  that  year  something 
has  not  been  done  to  elevate  the  tone  of  the  general 
life.  We  ought  to  work  to  redeem  this  world,  not 
merely  to  populate  the  next. 

Tliis  does  not  at  all  mean  that  I  am  not  fully  aware 
of  the  splendid  efforts  that  certain  individuals  and 
certain  societies  and  institutions  are  putting  forth 
with  a  view  to  purifying  society  and  communicating 
to  the  civic  conditions  of  city  and  state  a  finer  and 
stronger  impulse ;  and  all  of  that  is  in  the  main 
attributable  to  influences  that  are  nurtured  by  the 


106  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

Church,  and  fostered  in  the  Church  by  the  preaching 
of  gospel  truth.  And  yet  the  fact  is  that  the  entire 
situation,  social  and  civic,  deplorable,  unutterably 
deplorable,  as  it  is  in  certain  respects,  is  not  mastered, 
because  the  churches  in  their  individual  membersliip 
are  not  massed  with  a  distinct  view  to  the  correction 
of  the  situation  and  its  replacement  by  a  better. 

The  possibilities  of  godly  sentiment,  as  those  possi- 
bilities exist  in  our  churches  and  in  our  synagogues, 
are  sufficient  to  do  anything  and  everytliing  that  they 
will  cooperate  in  doing.  If  in  New  York,  for  example, 
each  denomination  had  its  bishop,  and  there  were  an 
archbishop  over  all,  with  the  inspiration  of  a  prophet, 
and  a  prophet  possessed  withal  of  something  of  the 
absolutism  of  the  old  prophet  of  the  Hebrews,  it 
would  be  about  as  easy  to  dissipate  the  iniquity  and 
the  deviltry  prevailing  in  our  civic  conditions  as  it 
is  for  the  rising  sun  to  scatter  the  mists  and  evaporate 
the  dew.  Evil  spirits  always  keep  step  with  the  beat 
of  the  devil's  drum.  The  anarchy  of  the  saints  is  no 
match  for  the  organization  of  the  sinners. 

I  am  not  moved  to  this  way  of  stating  things  out 
of  any  pessimistic  impulse.  I  believe  in  the  Church 
and  I  believe  in  it  tremendously.  Its  possibilities  of 
effect  are  enormous,  but  its  experience  is  too  dull  and 
its  godliness  speckled  with  too  many  spots  of  world- 
liness  to  have  a  clear  sense  of  separateness  from  the 


Responsibility  for  Civic   Conditions       107 

forces  it  is  set  to  overcome,  and  therefore  out  of 
condition  to  achieve  its  destiny  of  conquest  ideally 
appointed  to  it. 

It  would  seem  to  go  without  the  saying  that  the 
State  is  such  sort  of  edifice  that  its  solidity  and  per- 
manence are  imperiled  save  as  it  is  constructed  in 
observance  of  certain  well-ascertained  principles. 
The  same  holds  as  in  ordinary  architecture.  A  cer- 
tain amount  of  discretion  and  of  independent  taste 
can  be  exercised  in  the  putting  up  of  a  building,  and 
yet  all  such  independence  requires  to  be  subordinated 
to  the  principles  of  the  art.  In  the  erection  of  a 
building  it  is  the  architect  that  furnishes  the  prin- 
ciples and  it  is  the  builder  that  applies  them  under 
the  architect's  supervision. 

This  seems  to  me  to  state  with  approximate  accu- 
racy the  functions  respectively  of  the  Church  and  of 
the  State — of  the  churchman  and  of  the  man,  whether 
churchman  or  not,  who  is  charged  with  the  State's 
legislative,  judicial  and  executive  functions. 

Now  to  dispense  with  the  former — the  Church — 
would  be  to  leave  the  State  in  the  condition  in  which 
any  structure  of  wood  or  stone  would  be  left  if,  in 
renunciation  of  the  underlying  and  eternal  principles 
of  architecture,  the  builder  were  to  go  on  and  put  up 
whatever  sort  of  edifice  his  own  convenience  or  caprice 
might   suggest,  leaving  it  without  underpinning,   if 


108  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

underpinning  were  expensive,  or  disregarding  the 
lines  of  perpendicular  and  horizontal,  if  the  exigen- 
cies of  the  location  suggested  it,  or  if  obliquity  of 
vision  rendered  the  appreciation  of  those  lines 
difficult. 

The  distinction  thus  made  indicates  clearly  enough, 
I  should  think,  the  difference  between  the  statesman 
and  the  politician.  The  statesman  conforms  his  acts 
to  the  requirement  of  that  which  is  fundamental  and 
estabhshed,  works  upon  long  lines  and  with  regard 
to  next  year  and  all  the  years.  The  politician  extem- 
porizes his  procedure,  makes  up  his  acts  as  he  goes 
along,  and  binds  himself  only  by  the  exigencies  of 
the  moment,  and  especially  by  the  exigencies  of  his 
own  ambition  or  convenience. 

This  was  illustrated  in  my  own  state  a  year  or  two 
ago  when  twenty-five  senators,  under  the  influence  of 
graft,  we  suppose,  or  its  equivalent,  voted  to  dispense 
with  the  constitution  and  to  act  in  contempt  of  its 
distinct  requirements ;  or  as  was  illustrated  on  a 
smaller  scale  by  a  single  Albany  senator  who,  upon 
my  asking  him  what  was  his  first  thought,  upon  a 
new  bill  being  presented  for  senatorial  action,  replied, 
"My  first  thought  always  is,  What  effect  will  my 
attitude  toward  this  bill  have  upon  my  political 
future?"      How   much   of  permanent   advantage   to 


Responsibility  for  Civic  Conditions      109 

the  State  is  obtainable  from  that  sort  of  legislative 
equilibrisin  it  is  easy  to  surmise. 

It  is  the  function  of  the  Church  to  announce  the 
principles  upon  which  government  requires  to  be 
administered  in  order  to  the  maintenance  of  that 
established  foundation  upon  which  the  security  of 
the  State  depends,  and  not  only  to  announce  them, 
but  to  reiterate  them  with  that  unanimity  of  emphasis 
which  should  render  the  non-observance  of  them 
impossible.  And  if  the  Church  is  not  too  busy  with 
the  matter  of  securing  salvation  for  itself,  and  with 
the  business  of  Christianizing  the  heathen  the  other 
side  of  the  globe,  it  can  do  it. 

I  certainly  beheve  in  salvation  both  for  ourselves 
and  the  pagans  abroad,  but  it  is  a  sad  way  of  evan- 
gelizing heathenism  elsewhere  to  foster  it  in  our  own 
midst,  and  to  let  it  sap  the  foundations  of  our  Chris- 
tian civilization  at  home.  If  we  want  to  win  foreign 
nations  to  the  American  type  of  Christianity  we 
shall  have  to  do  it  not  merely  by  exporting  mission- 
aries but  by  giving  to  the  world  an  illustration  of 
what  Christianity  will  do  for  the  nation  that  calls 
itself  Christianized. 

It  is  in  the  interest  of  foreign  missions  as  well  as 
of  home  missions  that  we  should  be  nationally  repre- 
sentative of  the  principles  of  wholesome  Chiistian 
faith  and  doctrine.     In  these  days  of  rapid  inter- 


110  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

national  communication  by  steam  and  electricity, 
what  any  people  is  in  point  of  character  is  known  the 
world  over.  I  have  read  in  papers  published  as  far 
away  as  Australia  and  Tasmania  as  fair  and  appre- 
ciative an  exliibit  of  the  political  corruption  existing 
among  us  as  any  that  I  have  met  in  the  New  York 
Sun,  and  in  some  respects  more  so. 

In  order  that  it  may  be  understood  by  the  Christian 
ministry  how  heavy  is  the  burden  of  responsibility 
resting  upon  the  Church,  and  in  the  first  instance 
upon  the  ministers  as  leaders  and  inspirers  of  the 
Church,  I  want  to  say  that  not  much  is  to  be  hoped 
from  politics  as  at  present  existing  nor  from  the 
average  newspaper.  Please  observe  the  discrimina- 
tion which  is  involved  in  that  mode  of  statement. 

Partisan  politics — and  almost  all  politicians  are 
partisans — is  a  system  of  opportunism,  by  which  we 
are  to  understand  expediency  as  opposed  to  principle, 
the  adoption  of  any  policy  that  will  conduct  to  quick 
results.  A  striking  example  of  that  was  Bryan's 
readiness  to  flirt  with  Tammany  Hall  in  the  presiden- 
tial campaign  in  wliich  the  battle  was  waged  around 
bimetallism. 

Bryan,  as  I  interpret  him,  is  essential!}'  a  godly 
man.  Under  ordinary  circumstances  he  would  be 
almost  the  last  to  court  the  association  of  thieves, 
grafters  and  blackmailers  of  the  stripe  comprised  in 


Responsibility  fou  Civic  Conditions       111 

the  Fourteenth  Street  organization.  But  when  it 
came  to  be  a  matter  of  pohtics,  such  Scripture  injunc- 
tion as  "Come  ye  out  from  among  them  and  be  ye 
separate,"  no  longer  obtained.  The  man  who  carries 
his  Bible  Avith  him  into  the  sanctuary  is  not  certain 
to  put  it  in  his  pocket  when  getting  ready  to  attend 
a  partisan  convention  or  a  political  mass  meeting. 

That  has  been  a  common  feature  of  our  political 
life  in  New  York  City,  and  there  has  been  no  differ- 
ence between  Republicans  and  Democrats  in  that 
respect.  There  has  been  such  an  amalgamation 
of  righteousness  and  depravity  that  righteousness 
becomes  despoiled  of  its  natural  effect.  One  of  the 
saddest  features  of  the  whole  matter  is  that  a  man, 
whatever  his  original  integrity,  has  hard  work  to  be 
in  politics  without  losing  the  power  of  moral  sensi- 
tiveness and  discrimination.  The  prevaihng  political 
sentiment  is  a  depraved  one,  and  only  an  exception- 
ally vigorous  constitution  can  continue  to  respire 
corrupt  atmosphere  without  becoming  tainted  by  it. 

The  fundamental  fault  consists  in  not  treating 
moral  rectitude  as  something  that  covers  the  four 
quadrants  of  life,  and  in  regarding  depravity  when 
displayed  on  civic  ground  as  being  a  little  more 
tolerable  than  when  displayed  on  other  grounds ; 
taking  the  gristle  out  of  the  nonnal  conscience ; 
w^atering  the  Decalogue,  and  for  the  sake  of  carrying 


112  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

a  point  stepping  down  to  a  cheap  level  with  political 
tricksters,  whom  we  are  bound  to  love  as  men,  but  just 
as  much  bound  to  scorn  so  far  as  relates  to  mutuality 
of  effort  in  questions  that  concern  the  supreme  inter- 
ests of  city,  state  and  country.  A  man,  unquestion- 
ably godly  in  some  of  his  impulses,  will,  when  brought 
into  the  political  arena,  hobnob  with  a  perv^erted 
wretch  of  the  caucus  chamber,  touching  hands  with 
a  low-Hved,  scheming  intriguer,  knowing  all  the  time 
that  he  is  a  har  and  a  scoundrel,  and  yet,  because  it 
is  a  political  pool  that  they  are  mixing  their  issues  in, 
will  coalesce  with  the  speckled  fraternity  with  no 
sense  of  shame  or  blush  of  mortification. 

It  has  been  frequently  urged  upon  me  that  pushing 
things  too  far  and  insisting  upon  the  ideal  is  inexpe- 
dient. I  believe  that  it  is  a  good  thing  sometimes  to 
do  what  is  inexpedient.  Remembering  what  an  un- 
godly conglomerate  crowd  Moses  had  to  deal  with, 
how  absurdly  inexpedient  it  would  have  seemed  to  be 
for  him  to  draft  a  scheme  of  morals  so  inexpressibly 
fine  that  for  more  than  three  thousand  years  it  has 
been  attributed  to  a  divine  origin.  Compromise 
always  puts  one  more  rivet  into  the  bonds  of  iniquity 
with  which  the  individual  or  the  State  is  bound.  We 
may  not  achieve  the  ideal  at  once,  but  the  only  way  of 
ever  attaining  it  is  to  strike  for  it  at  once.  Jane 
Addams  of  Hull  House  put  herself  at  a  commanding 


Responsibility  for  Civic   Conditions       113 

and  impregnable  position  when  she  insisted  upon  the 
policy  not  simply  of  seeking  to  reduce  the  amount  of 
commercial  vice,  but  of  going  to  work  to  exterminate 
it.  Now  there  is  no  poUtical  party  in  existence  that 
will  stand  for  so  drastic  a  programme.  If  we  are 
striving  toward  social  perfection,  and  that  is  the  only 
proper  aim  of  the  ministry  and  the  Church,  we  need 
expect  no  help  from  the  politicians.  That  is  why  men 
in  politics  prefer  that  the  preachers  should  keep  their 
hands  off  of  civic  concerns.  Principle  and  expediency 
are  in  deadly  conflict  with  each  other.  There  is  no 
greater  rehef  that  could  come  to  the  weary,  fretted 
heart  of  the  mayor  of  New  York  than  to  know  that 
henceforth  all  the  ministers  of  the  city  were  going  to 
confine  themselves  to  what  he  understands  as  the 
simple  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ,  by  which  he  means  a 
careful  avoidance  of  all  moral  problems  except  such 
as  relate  themselves  to  the  other  world,  where  he  is 
not  known  to  have  expressed  himself  as  expecting  to 
hold  anything  other  than  an  unofficial  position. 

Nor  any  more  than  from  politics  can  we  expect 
very  much  from  the  press.  It  would  be  quite  unjust 
to  the  press  to  make  against  it  any  sweeping  allega- 
tions. It  is  much  easier  to  criticise  journaHsm  than 
to  be  a  journalist,  and  it  would  be  ungenerous  to  fail 
to  recognize  the  services  which  in  special  lines  are 


114  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

rendered  by  our  better  class  of  newspapers  and 
magazines. 

We  must  in  justice,  however,  remember  that  they 
are  pubhshed  and  circulated  as  matter  of  business, 
and  the  purpose  of  business  is  to  make  money,  and 
no  man  ever  does  an  ideally  good  thing  when  the 
prime  motive  is  shekels. 

We  cannot  criticise  a  man  or  a  corporation  for 
trying  to  make  a  newspaper  pay,  any  more  than  we 
could  criticise  the  same  man  or  corporation  for 
trying  to  make  a  manufacturing  or  banking  business 
pay;  but  with  that  object  primarily  in  view,  the 
management  is  anxious  for  nothing  so  much  as  for 
a  large  constituency,  and  that  means  catering  to  the 
people,  telling  people  what  they  want  to  hear  instead 
of  instructing  them  in  what  they  ought  to  know.  So 
that  an  ideal  newspaper  cannot  be  issued  in  an  unideal 
world  and  have  the  business  pay.  The  pulpit  is  the 
one  only  place  where  the  ideal  can  be  published  and 
is  expected  to  be  published.  And  even  there  it  is 
sometimes  difficult  to  close  the  financial  year  with  a 
credit  balance. 

It  is  unusual  for  a  newspaper  to  decry  what  is  bad 
simply  because  it  is  bad,  or  to  eulogize  what  is  good 
simply  because  it  is  good.  It  is  rare  to  find  one  that 
measures  men  or  estimates  events  from  the  frank 
standpoint    of    absolute    righteousness.      That    is    a 


Respoksibility  for  Civic  Coxditioxs       115 

function  of  which  the  pulpit  has  the  almost  exclusive 
monopol}^  Even  the  best  journalistic  endeavors  in 
that  direction  are  almost  certain  to  be  in  some 
degree  thwarted  by  the  prejudice  of  political  parti- 
sanship. If  \"ou  vituperate  Democratic  wickedness, 
Republican  journals  will  support  you  and  say  all 
manner  of  pleasant  things  about  you.  And  \'ice 
versa.  If  you  attack  Tammany,  in  whichever  of  the 
two  parties  the  Tammany  spirit  happens  to  be  incar- 
nated, the  anti-Tammany  papers  will  idolize  you, 
not  necessarily  because  they  hate  iniquit}^,— for  there 
may  be  the  same  amount  of  iniquity  on  their  own  side, 
although  of  a  more  reputable  kind  perhaps, — but 
because  they  hate  Tammany.  Pulitzer  backed  me  in 
'94,  not  because  he  loved  me  or  was  interested  in  the 
Decalogue,  but  because  he  hated  Dana. 

Perhaps  I  can  best  put  the  situation  before  you  by 
a  quotation  from  my  own  experience,  if  you  will 
aUow  it.  For  instance;  suppose  I  say  something 
today  in  criticism  of  the  moral  obliquity  of  some 
Republican  compatriot  on  the  Board  of  Aldermen  or 
of  the  Albany  Legislature.  Tomorrow  morning  a 
Democratic  paper  warmly  effulgent  comes  out  with 
something  hke  the  following:  "The  Rev.  Dr.  Park- 
hurst,  with  his  customary  keenness  and  vigor,  sa3's  of 
Mr. so  and  so."   Then  I  realize  what  strength 


116  The  Pulpit  axd  the  Pew 

and  encouragement  there  is  in  ha\dng  so  powerful  a 
journal  as  a  moral  ally. 

In  the  meantime  it  occurs  to  me  to  allude  to  the 
ethical  irregularity  of  some  member  of  the  Fourteenth 
Street  brotherhood;  and  on  turning,  next  morning, 
the  pages  of  the  same  sympathetic  sheet  my  eye  will 
be  greeted  by  some  such  headline  as  tliis :  "More  of 
Parkhurst's  blatherings."     Same  paper. 

Please  remember  that  my  reference  to  the  press  has 
not  been  for  the  purpose  of  criticising  it,  but  only 
with  a  view  to  illustrating  the  fact  that  it  is  to  some 
other  source  that  we  have  to  look  for  the  securing  of 
ideal,  social  and  ciAac  conditions.  That  is  one  of  the 
mischiefs  of  political  administration  and  party 
government  that  it  obscures  the  Adsion  and  debases 
the  moral  standard  of  men  partisanly  inclined,  be 
they  Republicans  or  Democrats,  one  as  much  as  the 
other,  if  not  more  so. 

It  is  then  by  the  preacliing  of  righteousness,  pure 
and  unadulterated,  that  the  vices  of  society  are  to  be 
ehminated  and  the  faults  and  weaknesses  of  civic 
conditions  corrected ;  a  preacliing  of  righteousness  so 
distinct  that  it  cannot  be  misunderstood,  so  concrete 
that  it  cannot  be  misapplied;  a  preacliing  by  men 
that  are  so  obsessed  by  their  passion  for  the  ideal  that 
civic  obliquity  costs  them  a  pang,  and  at  the  same 
time  living  so  close  to  the  world,  to  the  men  that  are 


Responsibility  for  Civic  Conditions      117 

in  it  and  to  the  transactions  that  go  on  in  it,  that 
they  can  address  themselves  to  those  conditions  with 
an  intelligence  that  will  command  respect  and  \\'ith  a 
sort  of  prophetic  passion  that  will  create  courage  and 
purpose  in  the  sound-hearted  and  create  a  quaking 
among  the  foul  spirits  with  which  in  our  social  and 
civic  life  we  are  so  disastrouslv  infected. 


VI 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  THE  CHURCH  TO  THE 
LIFE  OF  THE  TOWN 


We  are  come  together  this  afternoon  as  a  body  of 
Christians,  with  views  diiFering  somewhat,  probably, 
in  matters  of  detail,  although  substantially  identical, 
but  certainly  at  one  with  each  other  in  tliis,  that  we 
are  sharers,  all  of  us,  in  one  common  responsibility. 

It  is  part  of  our  common  confession  that  Christ  is 
the  Saviour  of  the  world,  and  yet  he  has  seen  fit  so 
far  to  put  liimself  under  limitations  that  the  progress 
of  the  world's  redemption  is  quickened  or  retarded 
according  to  the  availabihty  of  those  whom  he  has 
already  brought  into  his  kingdom.  So  that  while 
he  is  the  one  original  Redeemer,  how  long  it  will  take 
to  effectuate  a  world-wide  redemption  will  depend 
not  upon  him  but  upon  his  Church. 

It  was  God  that  brought  the  cliildren  of  Israel 
into  the  Promised  Land ;  but  in  obedience  to  his  estab- 
lished policy  of  action  he  was  forty  years  late  in 
bringing  them  in,  and  for  the  reason  that  they  were 
not  immediately  available  for  his  purpose.  Practi- 
cally they  held  God  in  check.     There  is  in  the  woven 


Responsibility  of  the  Church  119 

web  of  history  a  human  woof  as  well  as  a  divine  warp, 
and  the  world  is  an  entire  generation  behind  what  it 
would  have  been  had  not  the  spies  that  were  sent  up 
to  search  out  the  land  become  panic-stricken  by  the 
stature  of  the  Anakims. 

There  are  several  reasons  why  the  Church  does  not 
stand  up  to  the  level  of  its  calling,  and  one  is  that  it 
does  not  altogether  realize  its  calling,  and  has  no 
defined  conception  of  what  it  is  in  the  world  to  do. 
A  feeble  sense  of  purpose  is  sufficient  to  neutralize 
even  the  most  complete  possibilities  of  effect.  Ability 
that  does  not  clearly  know  what  to  do  with  itself  is 
no  better  than  inability. 

It  is  not  an  uncommon  occurrence,  indeed  it  is  not 
at  all  out  of  the  usual,  to  find,  upon  receiving  new 
members  into  the  Church,  that  they  are  unable  to  give 
a  rational  account  of  the  step  thej'  are  taking:  and 
it  is  not  infrequently  the  case  that  they  will  live  in 
it  and  die  in  it  without  at  the  end  being  any  more  able 
to  give  a  rational  account  than  at  the  beginning. 

Therefore,  for  the  purpose  of  coming  to  a  clear 
understanding  and  with  a  view  to  saying  something 
that  is  fundamental,  I  lay  it  down  as  my  basal  pro- 
position, that  the  exclusive  work  to  which  the  Church 
is  called  is  to  be  the  instrument  in  God's  hands  of 
stimulating  in  men  the  desire,  and  fostering  in  them 
the  ability,  to  become  what  it  lay  in  God's  mind  to 


120  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

have  them  become  when  he  said,  "Let  us  make  man 
in  our  image." 

Such  a  proposition  affords  to  the  Church  a  large 
field  of  operation,  but  at  the  same  time  indicates  the 
limits  within  which  its  operations  require  to  be  con- 
fined. And  we  do  less  that  is  germane  to  our  calling 
than  we  should  do  if  we  were  not  so  ready  to  cross 
the  frontier  of  our  obhgation  and  to  occupy  our- 
selves in  fields  where  our  churchly  license  does  not 
authorize  us  to  operate. 

The  vahdity  of  tliis  principle  and  the  method  of 
its  application  is  exemplified  by  Christ's  mode  of 
deahng  with  the  devil-possessed  Gadarene.  The  man 
was  naked.  There  were  two  things,  therefore,  that 
he  needed,  inward  soundness  and  outward  habili- 
ments. To  furnish  the  first  lay  within  the  scope  of 
Christ's  ministry ;  to  furnish  the  second  did  not.  He 
therefore  cast  out  the  evil  spirit  and  left  it  to  the 
Gadarene  to  meet  contingent  necessities  in  his  own 
way.  That  is  the  principle  upon  wliich  the  doctrine 
of  Christ  proceeds,  that  a  man  will  be  able  to  provide 
for  his  external  needs  when  everything  has  been 
supplied  which  the  gospel  is  able  to  furnish  toward 
answering  his  internal  requirements. 

It  is  noticeable  that  money  plays  no  part  in  the 
first  chapter  of  Christian  history.  Christ  disclosed 
the  inner  nature  of  liis  calling  and  drew  a  sharp  line 


Responsibility  of  the  Church  1^1 

between  person  and  circumstance  by  making  no  use 
of  money.  He  had  none  to  use.  He  thereby  indicated 
that  the  growth  of  his  kingdom  is  to  be  secured  by 
what  the  Church  does  for  the  inward  man,  not  by 
what  it  does  for  the  outward  man.  He  was  not  a 
banker,  nor  a  taikir,  nor  a  baker,  and  when  he  had 
raised  the  dead  girl  to  Hfe  he  tokl  her  parents  that 
he  would  leave  it  to  them  to  provide  her  with  some- 
thing to  eat.  So  of  Peter:  "Silver  and  gold  have  I 
none,  but  what  I  have  that  give  I  unto  thee.     Stand 

up." 

St.  Paul  initiated  the  crusade  against  slavery.  His 
method  of  doing  it  is  laid  down  in  his  brief  letter  to 
Philemon.  The  outward  condition  of  enslavement 
he  did  not  touch.  He  maintained  no  direct  warfare 
upon  the  institution,  neither  purchasing  the  emanci- 
pation of  Onesimus,  nor  encouraging  him  to  run  away 
from  his  master,  but  the  contrary.  What  he  did  do 
was  to  play  off  the  gospel  influence  of  brotherly  love 
upon  the  heart  of  Philemon  his  master.  That  is  to 
say,  he  worked  exclusively  for  internal  effects,  know- 
ing, which  is  always  the  case,  that  sound  inward 
condition  will  always,  in  the  long  run,  create  whole- 
some outward  circumstances. 

There  is  no  short  cut  to  healthful  results.  Physi- 
cians who  try  to  cure  symptoms  kill  their  patients. 
The  function  of  the  Church  is  to  improve  the  breed. 


122  The  Pulpit  axd  the  Pew 

The  issues  of  life,  the  Scriptures  tell  us,  are  from 
witliin.  The  man  must  take  care  of  his  circum- 
stances, but  the  Church  must  take  care  of  the  man. 
It  is  easier  to  pay  a  man's  board  than  it  is  to  qualify 
him  to  pay  his  own  board;  hence  the  reliance  upon 
money.  There  is  a  feeling  abroad  that  the  Church 
is  directly  responsible  for  the  hard  conditions  under 
which  so  many  people  live,  directly  responsible,  I  say. 
I  recently  received  a  letter  from  a  workingman  who 
claimed  that  he  received  two  shilHngs  a  day  less  for 
his  labor  than  was  his  due,  and  he  charged  up  that 
deficiency  to  the  Church.  You  see  what  the  Church 
gets  by  not  keeping  itself  snugly  inside  of  its  own 
diocese,  and  by  not  distinctly  announcing  to  the 
public  what  the  limits  of  that  diocese  are. 

Peter  sets  us  an  example  in  that  particular  by 
definitely  declaring,  "We  have  no  money  for  you ;  we 
have  something  for  you,  and  we  are  going  to  give 
it  to  you,  but  it  is  not  shekels."  Now  it  is  the  dis- 
regard of  that  principle  which  prompts  Christians  to 
issue  their  check  instead  of  issuing  their  personality. 
We  encounter  a  beggar  on  the  street.  He  wants 
bread.  Whatever  his  physical  hunger,  there  is  in 
him  a  big  necessity  that  is  far  deeper  than  any  gastric 
cra^dng.  He  many  not  know  it,  but  we  know  it. 
Nevertheless  we  flip  out  ten  cents  and  the  incident  is 
closed.     We  have  relieved  his  circumstance  but  have 


Responsibility  of  the  Church  123 

not  helped  him.  We  have  put  a  suit  of  clothes  on 
the  naked  Gadarene,  but  we  have  done  nothing 
towards  casting  out  liis  devil.  We  have  acted  toward 
him  as  any  pagan  might  act.  There  is  no  Chris- 
tianity in  a  dime. 

Personality  dealing  directly  with  personality  is 
the  Christ  policy  and  the  apostolic  policy.  Christ's 
method  of  saving  the  world  is  just  as  prescriptive 
as  a  method  as  liis  doctrine  is  prescriptive  as  a 
doctrine.  As  things  are  the  personality  of  the 
Church,  with  some  exceptions,  is  not  touching  the 
personality  of  the  world.  The  Church  raises  money 
and  hires  a  minister ;  raises  money  and  pays  a  choir ; 
raises  money  and  liires  Sunday  school  teachers  ;  raises 
money  and  pays  a  missioner  to  preach  to  outside 
sinners  that  have  no  churchly  attachment.  But  the 
Church  in  the  great  body  of  its  membership,  in  the 
totality  of  its  life,  is  as  far  from  the  outside  masses 
as  it  is  from  Madagascar.  We  put  the  meat  in  the 
cellar  and  the  salt  in  the  attic  and  then  wonder  why 
the  meat  does  not  keep  fresh. 

Some  of  us  are  not  as  interested  as  others  in  trying 
to  save  people  for  the  life  to  come.  While  thoroughly 
believing  in  the  future  life  we  believe  it  is  a  fine  thing 
to  be  beautifully,  sweetly  and  soundly  human  even 
though  there  were  to  be  no  future  life.  Goodness  is 
good,  whether  it  last  longer  or  shorter.     There  are 


124  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

animals  that  last  but  a  few  days  or  even  a  few  hours, 
but  they  are  pleasing  to  the  eye  of  God  so  long  as 
they  do  last. 

We  have  to  grant  that  hfe  does,  of  necessity,  part 
with  some  of  its  significance  as  soon  as  it  is  put  under 
limitations  of  time.  Could  we  have  known  before 
being  born  what  earthly  hfe  is,  and  that  Hfe  here  is 
all  there  is  to  it,  and  were  it  then  optional  with  us  to 
be  bom  or  not  to  be  born,  most  of  us  would,  without 
very  much  hesitancy,  have  declined  birth.  And  that 
so  few  people,  comparatively  speaking,  commit  sui- 
cide, is  to  be  taken  as  proof  of  a  general  underlying 
suspicion  that  there  is  sometliing  more  and  larger 
and  better  after  these  few  years  are  finished. 

But  grand  living  is  grand  even  without  the  future, 
although  touched  by  a  superlative  splendor  by  the 
future;  so  that,  as  Christians,  while  rendering 
churchly  service  to  men  and  women  in  the  prospect 
of  the  larger  life  to  come,  we  may  not  foster  the 
superb  possibilities  that  are  in  them  with  too  constant 
an  eye  to  the  hereafter,  as  though  true  living  would 
commence  only  upon  our  arrival  yonder,  but  foster 
those  superb  possibilities  rather  at  the  impulse  of  the 
motive  that  fine  living  is  fine  li^dng  under  all  circum- 
stances, that  hving  of  any  other  kind  carries  in  it  the 
disgrace  of  moral  suicide,  and  that  if  we  are  fit  to  live 
in  the  world  we  are  now  in,  we  shall  certainly  be  fit 


Responsibility  of  the  Church  V25 

to  live  in  any  other  sphere  in  which  God  may  subse- 
quently put  us.  Just  enough  of  future  prospect 
flavors  present  years  with  a  quality  that  is  indis- 
pensable, but  too  much  of  it  creates  a  certain  haziness 
and  sense  of  unreality  that  robs  today  of  its  solidity 
and  robustness.  So  that,  as  said  a  moment  ago,  some 
of  us  are  more  interested  in  helping  to  qualify  men 
to  live  than  in  trying  to  prepare  them  to  die,  and 
instead  of  repudiating  this  world  and  throwing  at  it 
all  the  opprobrious  epithets  of  our  vocabulary  and 
treating  it  only  as  an  admirable  place  to  escape  from, 
doins-  our  best  to  make  tliis  world  a  better  world  and 
so  sweet  and  attractive  that  we  shall  have  no  desire 
to  escape  from  it,  assured,  as  I  suppose  we  are,  that 
this  world  is  as  good  a  one  as  God  knew  how  to  make, 
and  that  perhaps  Ave  shall  not  be  through  with  it 
when  we  have  finished  what  we  call  our  mortal  career. 
And  then,  also,  while  some  of  us  are  disposed  to  put 
a  certain  amount  of  time  hmit  to  the  churchly  plans 
we  formulate  and  the  churchly  service  Ave  render, 
we  are  likeAvise  disposed  to  set  to  them  a  considerable 
degree  of  geographical  limitation.  Jesus  Christ 
carried  upon  liis  heart  the  entire  Avorld  and  yet,  while 
on  earth,  never  did  anything  outside  of  a  little  fringe 
of  territory  on  the  east  coast  of  the  Mediterranean. 
There  was  where  he  gained  his  touch  upon  the  world, 
and  chose  it  as  being  the  best  specific  locality  through 


126  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

which  to  come  within  reach  of  the  world  at  large  and 
man  universal. 

Providence  and  birth  fixes  for  each  his  natural 
place  of  working.  As  Americans  our  supreme  inter- 
est will  be  our  country.  Patriotism  will  mean  to  the 
Christian  Church  not  so  much  a  grateful  appreciation 
of  what  our  country  yields  to  us  in  the  way  of 
benefits,  as  it  mil  mean  a  tender  and  prayerful  desire 
to  see  it  made  an  integral  part  of  the  kingdom  of 
our  Lord.  So  great  is  the  geographical  extent  of  our 
country  that  it  constitutes  a  pretty  wide  area  for  our 
churchly  affection  to  diffuse  itself  over.  Diffusion  is 
regularly  at  the  expense  of  depth,  and  intensity 
varies  inversely  as  the  cube  of  the  area. 

While,  therefore,  we  shall  from  time  to  time  send 
out  and  send  up  devout  thoughts  for  the  salvation  of 
the  world,  and  more  frequently  labor  with  our 
prayers  for  the  redemption  of  the  United  States, 
Providence  seems  to  indicate  to  us  who  are  gathered 
here  tliis  afternoon,  that  we  should  regard  our  own 
town  as  being  practically,  so  far  as  we  are  concerned, 
all  the  world  that  there  is. 

This  is  the  principle  adopted  under  Nehemiah  for 
the  rebuilding  of  the  wall  of  Jerusalem,  where  each 
householder,  instead  of  concerning  himself  with  the 
reconstruction  of  the  wall  in  its  entirety,  occupied 
himself  with  only  so  much  of  it  as  lay  over  against 


Responsibility  of  the  Chuech  127 

his  own  house.  Concentrated  interest  produces  the 
largest  results.  I  have  always  had  an  admiration  for 
the  policy  of  Gardner  Spring,  once  pastor  of  the 
Brick  Church  in  New  York  City,  who  was  so  exclu- 
sively devoted  to  his  own  particular  field  that  when 
he  prayed,  "Thy  Kingdom  come,"  everybody  knew 
that  what  his  prayer  really  aimed  at  was  the  increase 
in  the  spirit  and  membership  of  the  Brick  Church. 

So  far  as  I  have  experienced  and  observed,  the 
Church  in  each  locality,  be  it  city  or  village,  is  very 
far  from  mastering  the  hfe  of  the  locaHty,  either 
socially,  industrially,  commercially  or  politically. 
It  seems  not  to  lie  definitely  formulated  in  the  mind 
and  heart  of  each  several  church  that  it  belongs  to 
it  to  put  itself  consciously  and  deliberately  to  the 
work  of  converting  its  own  precinct,  and  making  it 
in  character  and  conduct  a  part  of  the  kingdom  of 
Jesus  Christ. 

Let  us  not,  however,  commit  the  eas}^  fault  of 
generaHzation.  There  is  no  life  and  conduct  of  the 
city  or  town  apart  from  the  life  and  conduct  of  the 
indi^'idual  men  and  women  of  whom  the  urban  or  rural 
population  is  composed.  People  are  brought  into 
the  kingdom  not  in  crowds  or  gangs,  but  man  by  man, 
woman  by  woman.  When  the  husbandman  hoes  what 
he  calls  his  field  of  corn,  he  does  not  hoe  the  field  at 
all,  but  the  hills  of  corn,  one  at  a  time.     When  I  say 


128  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

then  that  the  Church  is  not  mastering  the  Hfe  of  a 
locahty,  what  I  mean  is  that  the  individual  members 
of  the  Church  are  not  mastering  the  individual 
members  of  that  locality. 

It  is  never  to  be  forgotten  that  there  is  a  work, 
and  a  most  important  work,  to  be  done  in  confirming 
and  building  up  in  the  faith  those  Avho  are  already 
believers,  redeemed  believers.  But  only  to  do  as  much 
as  that  is  simply  to  hold  our  own  and  gives  no  promise 
of  the  eventual  complete  coming  of  our  Lord's 
kingdom. 

Confirming  and  educating  the  faith  of  beHevers 
is  the  prime  office  of  the  clergy ;  but  to  initiate  into 
Christian  belief  those  who  are  not  beHevers,  to  bring 
men  to  Christ,  as  contrasted  with  building  up  in 
Christ,  is,  I  claim,  not  the  function  of  the  clergyman, 
but  of  the  layman.  Some  suspicion  of  the  truth  of 
this  position  appears  to  have  been  the  impulse  lead- 
ing to  the  inauguration  of  what  we  know  as  the  "Men 
and  Religion  Forward  Movement."  The  matter  is 
referred  to  here  because  of  the  opportunity  afforded 
to  impress  upon  ministers  their  obligation,  in  the 
interests  of  the  Christian  cause,  to  teach  their  con- 
gregations that  it  is  sin  for  a  Christian  layman  to 
do  nothing  toward  bringing  to  Christ  those  who  are 
out  of  Christ. 

Saul  was   the  prime   instrument   which   the  Lord 


Respoxsibility  of  the  Church  129 

used  in  tipping  the  early  disciples  out  of  the  com- 
fortable nest  of  the  Jerusalem  church,  putting  them 
upon  their  own  wings  and  scattering  them  upon 
divergent  lines  of  Christian  evangelization. 

The  Apostles,  we  are  told  in  the  eighth  chapter  of 
the  Acts,  remained  at  Jerusalem.  Those  who  were 
scattered  abroad  were  the  unclerical  members  of  the 
church  at  Jerusalem.  They  were  the  laymen,  but 
even  so,  went  everywhere  preaching  the  gospel. 

"Preaching"  is  too  formal  a  word  to  express  accu- 
ratel}^  the  idea  of  the  Greek  original.  It  would  be 
more  exact  to  say  that  they  went  everywhere  telhng 
the  stor}'  of  the  gospel.  It  was  a  work  of  communi- 
cating to  others,  in  a  simple  colloquial  way  that  which 
had  been  communicated  to  them  in  a  manner  more 
formal. 

The  disciples  that  were  scattered  by  persecution 
through  Judea,  Samaria  and  outlying  districts,  did 
not  go  about  talking  to  the  non-Christian  popula- 
tions because  the  Apostles  back  in  Jerusalem  were 
not  discharging  their  duties,  but  because  they 
realized  that  they  had  themselves  a  dutj^  to  do  and 
an  opportunity  to  avail  of.  They  wanted  to  fulfil  the 
mission  that  as  believers  belonged  to  them,  and  were 
too  appreciative  of  the  responsibility  resting  upon 
every  follower  of  Christ  to  make  his  cause  known 
and  his  gospel  accepted,  to  be  willing  to  leave  aU 


130  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

the  responsibility  of  it  resting  upon  the  shoulders  of 
a  dozen  Apostles.  Such  neglect  of  opportunity  and 
evasion  of  duty  and  pri\'ilege  would  not  have  been 
fair  to  the  Apostles,  saying  notliing  of  its  indicating 
a  lax  loyalty  to  the  cause  and  to  the  Lord  of  the 
cause.  The  place  where  it  belonged  to  the  Apostles 
at  that  time  to  remain  was  Jerusalem.  Perhaps  the 
lay  Christians — impelled  by  the  natural  preference 
to  be  ministered  to  rather  than  to  minister,  to 
appropriate  the  bread  of  life  rather  than  to  distribute 
it- — would  have  remained  there  too  had  they  not  been 
whipped  out  by  the  scourge  of  persecution.  But 
they  were  whipped  out  and  the  consequence  was  that 
concentric  waves  of  evangehzation  began  expanding 
themselves  in  every  direction  from  Jerusalem  out. 

It  would  be  immodest  and  unjust  to  eulogize  the 
faithful  activity  of  the  clergy,  for  while  I  do  not 
think  that,  take  them  as  a  whole,  they  are  a  lazy 
body  of  men,  yet  it  cannot  be  claimed  that  they  have 
stretched  themselves  out  to  the  full  length  of  their 
opportunity;  but  as  a  body  we  have  the  feehng  that 
we  are  made  responsible  for  the  growth  of  Christ's 
kingdom  on  the  earth  to  a  degree  that  is  not  justified. 
The  pulpit  certainly  occupies  in  relation  to  the 
evangelization  of  the  world  a  position  of  immense 
responsibility,  but  its  relation  to  the  Christians  in  the 
pews  is  to  a  certain  extent  pictorially  illustrated  by 


Responsibility  of  the  Church  131 

the  relations  which  Christ  sustained  to  his  disciples 
in  the  miracle  of  the  loaves  and  fishes,  so  far  only  as 
this,  that  he  furnished  the  bread  and  fish  to  the 
disciples  and  they  did  the  distributing  of  it  to  the 
multitude. 

Please  to  understand  that  the  parallelism  between 
the  two  cases  consists  only  in  this,  that  it  is  true  of 
the  preacher,  as  was  true  of  Christ  in  the  miracle, 
that  he  cannot  reach  the  multitude  personally  and 
directly.  The  preacher's  prime  place  is  in  his  pulpit 
and  the  members  of  his  church  answer  to  the  disciples 
whose  function  in  the  miraculous  feeding  of  the  multi- 
tude was  to  distribute  what  Christ  put  in  their  hands 
to  distribute.  The  bread  did  not  stop  with  the 
disciples.  They  were  intermediaries  for  its  distribu- 
tion. 

While  not  failing  to  recognize  the  large  number 
of  splendid  exceptions  which  exist  and  to  which  our 
strictures  are  altogether  inapplicable,  yet  in  general 
there  has  grown  up  between  clergymen  and  laymen 
a  distinction  so  marked  and  so  deeply  grooved  as  to 
be  fruitful  in  discouraging  results.  If  as  large  a 
proportion  of  the  work  of  orally  presenting  the 
truths  of  the  gospel  had  been  left  to  the  Apostles  or 
their  official  successors  as  is  now  being  left  to  the 
pulpit,  Christianity  would  hardly  have  sui*vived  its 
first  century.     The  pulpits  are  not  doing  the  work 


132  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

and  what  is  more  they  cannot,  and  something  in  the 
shape  of  a  layman's  movement  is  not  only  to  be 
desired  but  demanded,  and  absolutely  demanded,  by 
the  conditions  of  the  case,  if  Christianity  is  not  to 
lose  more  and  more  its  hold  upon  the  people,  and  that 
it  is  at  the  present  time  losing  somewhat  of  that  hold 
is  a  fact  too  evident  to  be  contested. 

Mention  was  made  a  moment  ago  of  the  fact  that 
the  sorry  and  languid  condition  into  which  Christian- 
ity has  fallen  is  due  to  a  large  extent  to  the  sharp 
line  of  demarkation  that  has  grown  up  between  the 
clerical  and  the  non-clerical  classes,  that  is  to  say 
between  the  pulpit  and  the  pew,  although  it  should 
be  remarked  that  the  meagerness  of  Christian 
results  is  hardly  a  thing  to  discourage  us  when  we 
remember  the  comparatively  small  amount  of  direct 
personal  Christian  power  brought  to  bear  in  pro- 
ducing results. 

If  all  the  laymen  that  count  themselves  Christians 
were  bringing  their  spiritual  energies  directly  to 
bear  upon  the  situation, — directly  I  say,  not  through 
hired  proxies, — and  if  then  there  were  nothing  more 
to  show  in  the  way  of  increasing  product,  there  would 
be  ground  for  disheartenment  and  reason  for  the 
conviction  that  Christianity  is  an  outworn  institution ; 
but  not  now.  Things  are  moving  very  well  consider- 
ing the  comparatively  limited  number  of  those  who 


Responsibility  of  the  Church  133 

are  doing  the  moving.  People  are  waking  up  to  that 
situation  and  that  is  why  so  much  is  being  said  about 
a  laymen's  movement. 

If  there  is  something  to  be  done,  and  somebody  else 
will  do  it,  it  is  human  nature  to  let  him  do  it.  Out  of 
that  fact  has  in  part  developed  the  wide  separation 
now  existing  between  ministers  and  laymen  in  the 
matter  of  personally  seeking  to  extend  to  others  an 
experimental  knowledge  of  Christ  and  of  the  meaning 
and  power  of  the  Christian  faith.  The  Scripture 
injunction,  "Let  him  that  heareth  say  come,"  is  uni- 
versally applicable  but  has  been  largely  forgotten. 
The  gift  of  spiritual  life  made  over  to  us  in  Christ 
Jesus  is  itself  a  commission  to  be  personal  instruments 
for  the  extension  of  that  life  to  others.  "As  my 
heavenly  Father  hath  sent  me,  even  so  send  I  you." 

In  the  miraculous  feeding  of  the  multitude  the 
loaves  and  fishes  put  in  the  hands  of  the  disciples 
did  not  stop  with  the  disciples.  For  those  who  listen 
to  the  preached  word  and  receive  the  bread  of  life  at 
the  hands  of  the  preacher,  to  confine  that  bread  to 
themselves  and  devote  it  exclusively  to  their  own 
personal  consumption  is  the  same  as  it  would  have 
been  for  the  disciples  to  use  the  loaves  and  fishes  for 
the  satisfaction  of  their  own  appetites  and  to  let  the 
multitude  go  unfed  and  hungry.  I  have  preached  in 
my  pulpit  in  New  York  City  thirty-three  years  and 


134  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

to  the  extent  to  which  the  truth  which  I  have  given  to 
the  congregation  has  stopped  in  the  hearts  of  its 
members  to  that  extent  the  thirty-three  years  have 
been  wasted,  so  far  as  bears  upon  the  extension  of 
Christ's  kingdom. 

Where  perhaps  the  pulpit  has  itself  failed  is  in 
omitting  to  press  home  upon  young  Christians  that 
truth  more  distinctly  and  constantly,  so  that  as  they 
grew  up  into  years  of  increasing  influence  and  oppor- 
tunity the  sense  of  evangelical  function  would  be  an 
increasing  factor  of  experience. 

This  leads  me  on  to  say  that  to  the  extent  that  the 
members  of  churches  are  sincerely  Christian,  and 
thorouglily  impregnated  with  the  spirit  of  our  holy 
faith,  they  will  be  possessed  of  the  idea  that  Chris- 
tianity is  the  world  religion,  and  destined  to  prove 
itself  such,  to  which  all  other  religions  are  in  point 
of  completeness  mere  approximations ;  so  that  non- 
Christians,  whoever  they  are,  and  wherever  they  are, 
constitute  the  area  germane  to  Christian  endeavor. 

There  are  portions  of  that  area  where  efforts  that 
are  put  forth  will  require  to  be  exercised  with  very 
special  wisdom  and  discretion,  ground  upon  which  it 
is  exceedingly  difficult  and  delicate  to  tread,  but  the 
delicacy  and  the  difficulty  are  no  sufficient  warrant 
for  neglect  and  evasion,  and  that  such  is  the  fact 
will  be  recognized  according  to  the  distinctness  with 


Responsibility  of  the  Church  135 

which  one  appreciates  the  supreme  claims  made  upon 
the  soul  by  evangelical  Christianity,  and  I  would  go 
even  farther  than  that  and  say  Protestant  Chris- 
tianity- 
Underlying  all  such  aggression  should  be  the 
emphatic  reahzation  of  the  beauty  of  holiness  wher- 
ever it  exists,  and  in  however  attenuated  and  even 
tainted  a  fonn,  be  it  in  CathoHc,  Jew,  Mohammedan 
or  Buddhist.  Religion  is  religion  the  world  over  and 
is  to  be  dealt  w  ith  as  fundamental  ground  upon  which 
with  heavier  or  hghter  pressure  all  men  stand.  Our 
Christianity  we  shall  therefore  present  not  as  a  dis- 
placement of  positions  already  held,  but  as  something 
supplementary  to  those  positions,  in  keeping  with  the 
words  of  Christ  who  said,  "I  came  not  to  destroy  but 
to  fulfil."  The  principal  churches  in  New  York 
City  are  moving  away  from  certain  parts  of  the  town 
on  the  ground  that  they  are  occupied  by  people  of 
means  so  Hmited  that  churches  and  church  sei-^-ices 
can  only  with  difficulty  be  maintained,  and  occupied 
by  Jews  and  by  Catholics. 

As  to  the  first  class — the  poor — Christ  struck 
out  for  the  poor,  and  the  ignorant,  and  the  indecent, 
knowine:  that  the  kincrdom  of  God  on  earth  is  like  a 
tree,  which,  although  rained  upon  and  sunlit  from  the 
sky,  nevertheless  grows  from  the  ground  up,  not 
from  the  sky  down.     The  Church  has  been  standing 


136  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

off  from  the  common  people,  and  now  the  common 
people  are  standing  off  from  the  Church,  and  social- 
ism is  appropriating  the  product  and  is  anti-prop- 
erty, anti-Church  and  anti-religion.  That  is  what 
comes  from  originating  a  policy  of  our  own  for  pro- 
moting the  enlargement  of  the  kingdom. 

As  for  the  Jew,  if  he  is  as  much  a  Christian  as  the 
pure  gospel  can  make  him,  and  as  for  the  Catholic 
if  he  is  as  much  a  Christian  as  the  pure  gospel  can 
make  him,  then  we  ought  to  let  them  both  alone.  But 
Jesus  did  not  let  the  Jews  alone,  but  laid  in  them  the 
foundations  of  liis  Church;  and  Luther  did  not  let 
the  Catholics  alone,  and  it  is  mightily  fortunate  for 
us  that  he  did  not ;  and  he  did  not  because  he  reahzed 
more  distinctly  than  most  Christians  what  Christian- 
ity means,  and  how  wide  a  difference  there  is  between 
Christianity  that  is  pure  and  spiritual  and  Chris- 
tianity that  is  more  or  less  carnal  and  formal,  and 
also  because  he  had  more  chivalry  than  most  Chris- 
tians, and  was  more  ready  than  most  to  resist  the 
current  instead  of  floating  down  with  it.  He  had 
grace  but  he  had  the  grit  that  communicates  to  grace 
its  efficiency. 

Propagandism  must  always  be  distinguished  by 
its  elements  of  gracious  enticement.  There  are 
Mohammedans  now  that  are  being  touched  by 
Christianity  for  with  their  belief  in  the  One  Only  God 


Responsibility  of  the  Church  137 

the}'  are  some  of  them  willing  to  regard  Christ  as 
being  at  least  an  authorized  teacher  and  able  to  throw 
some  light  on  the  character  of  the  One  Only. 

All  that  we  can  accomphsh  along  such  lines  will  be 
by  work  that  is  distinctly  constructive,  not  pulling 
down,  but  building  up.  I  have  two  hundred  born 
Catholics  worshiping  in  the  lecture  room  of  my  church 
every  Sunday  afternoon.  They  were  organized  into 
a  church  three  or  four  weeks  ago.  I  do  not  know 
whether  they  would  consider  themselves  Catholics  or 
Protestants.  Neither  word  is  ever  used  in  their 
sei^dce.  They  have  the  gospel  given  them,  undeco- 
rated  and  undiluted  and  with  no  label  but  simply  the 
label  of  "Christian."  And  they  like  it,  and  are 
growing  under  it.  If  Mr.  Gordiano  had  started  in 
by  telling  them  that  they  were  a  pack  of  ignorant 
CathoHcs,  and  that  their  only  hope  for  this  life  or  the 
life  to  come  was  to  repent  of  their  delusion  and  folly 
and  be  baptized  with  the  baptism  of  Martin  Luther 
and  John  Calvin,  the  birth  and  death  of  the  enter- 
prise would  have  synchronized. 

If  one  method  of  educating  children  is  better  than 
another  we  want  to  avail  ourselves  of  it  and  give  to  it 
all  rational  publicity.  And  likewise  if  in  our  judg- 
ment one  style  of  religion  or  one  style  of  Christian 
religion  is  better  calculated  to  improve  the  breed  than 
another  style,  it  is  incumbent  upon  us  to  turn  it  to 


138  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

account,  to  adopt  it  into  our  system  of  operation  and 
without  any  subterfuge  or  circumlocution,  to  put  it 
to  the  fore  unapologized  for. 

Now  there  are  two  ways  in  wliich  we  can  operate 
in  fulfihnent  of  our  churchly  obhgation,  to  the 
improvement  of  what  I  have  called  the  breed,  to  the 
change  of  our  social  character,  to  the  production  of 
a  city,  or  town  that  in  its  external  aspects  and  inter- 
nal quality  shall  not  constitute  so  savage  a  contrast 
to  what  is  apocalyptically  represented  as  the  City  of 
God  come  down  from  heaven. 

We  can  work  restrictively  and  we  can  work  recon- 
structively.  The  Church  has  not  made  its  influence 
very  markedly  felt  along  either  line.  And  that  is  not 
because  there  is  not  Church  enough.  Where  Church 
is  involved  arithmetic  is  not  an  element.  God  told 
Abraham  that  he  could  save  Sodom  by  fifty  men  or 
by  ten  men,  it  made  no  difference  to  him  which,  if 
they  were  the  right  sort  of  men.  Ecclesiastical  sta- 
tistics are  almost  the  most  insignificant  symptom  of 
efficiency  that  there  is  a-going. 

One  method,  then,  is  what  I  would  call  the  restric- 
tive. I  know  something  about  it.  I  do  not  prize  it 
as  liighly  as  I  once  did,  but  I  prize  it.  It  does  not 
directly  create  righteousness,  but  it  puts  obstacles 
in  the  path  of  iniquity.  As  applied  to  a  local  election, 
it  does  not,  to  any  considerable  extent,  make  men  to 


Responsibilitv  of  the  Church  139 

be  better  men,  but  it  docs  to  some  degree  operate  to 
prevent  them  from  becoming  worse,  and  may  operate 
temporarily  at  least  to  throw  the  worse  elements  of 
the  town  out  of  commission  even  if  it  does  not  throw 
them  permanently  out  of  business.  Even  if  successful 
it  is  no  guarantee  as  to  what  the  election  following 
will  result  in  and  may  be  nothing  more  than  an  oasis 
in  the  desert ;  and  that  is  all  that  it  usually  is. 

That  is  the  course  that  our  town  and  city  life 
regularly  runs,  showing  that  our  restrictive  work,  our 
attempt  to  dislodge  the  worse  element,  has  done 
nothing  more  than  scratch  the  surface  of  the  situa- 
tion. It  has  not  touched  down  to  the  vitals  of  our 
public  necessity.  It  has  affected  our  conditions  only 
as  caging  or  filing  the  teeth  of  a  gorilla  affects  the 
gorilla.  It  has  not  domesticated  him.  So  long  as  he 
is  caged  he  will  do  no  harm.  If  liis  teeth  are  filed  they 
will  not  cut  so  deep  an  incision.  But  the  process  has 
contributed  absolutely  nothing  toward  humanizing 
his  bestiality. 

We  have  learned  the  truth  of  all  this  by  local 
experience.  There  are  seasons  when  our  municipal 
physiognomy  in  New  York  City  wears  a  virtuous 
flush,  and  we  then  think  that  we  are  municipally 
recuperated  and  send  out  word  to  Philadelphia  and 
Chicago  how  well  we  are ;  the  night-watch  is  sus- 
pended,  the   nurses    discharged   and   the   physicians 


140  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

have  their  bills  paid.  Faithful  work  has  doubtless 
been  done  and  it  is  not  altogether  in  vain.  The 
patient  has  been  kept  from  dying  at  any  rate,  and 
that  is  something,  but  health  that  is  sufficiently 
healthy  to  maintain  itself  without  some  form  of 
medication  has  not  been  arrived  at. 

There  remain  as  many  drunkards,  as  many 
gamblers,  as  many  murderers,  as  many  prostitutes. 
The  estimated  amount  now  being  paid  annually  in 
New  York  City  by  wliite  servants  or  white  slaves — 
whichever  you  may  prefer  to  call  them — to  their 
male  masters  is  a  little  in  excess  of  one  hundred  and 
fifty  million  dollars. 

The  temporary  victory  gained  by  the  better  ele- 
ment may  liinder  to  some  extent  the  increase  of 
depravity  but  does  not  correct  depravity,  does  not 
convert  it  into  virtue,  is  not  constructive,  does  not 
indicate  that  the  immense  amount  of  Church  that  we 
have  here  is  functioning  in  a  way  to  make  the  town 
a  part  of  the  kingdom  of  God. 

A  fact  whose  serious  significance  in  this  connection 
is  not  appreciated  is  that  it  is  not  the  city  that  is 
wicked,  but  the  individuals  that  inhabit  it,  man  by 
man,  woman  by  woman.  Generalizations  are  danger- 
ous ;  they  tend  to  prevent  that  concentrated  indi- 
vidualization of  effort  that  alone  contains  in  it  the 
promise  and  the  power  of  positive  result. 


Responsibility  of  thk  Church  141 

There  is  no  such  thing,  for  example,  as  the  social 
evil  apart  from  the  indi\ddual  men  and  women  that 
are  licentious.  To  deal  with  that  matter  by  a  system 
of  generalization,  to  compose  essays  about  it,  to 
constitute  boards  of  commissioners  to  devise  schemes 
for  getting  the  mastery  of  it,  as  though  it  were 
some  vast  entity  that  could  be  handled  in  the  lump, 
is  to  confuse  the  mind,  and  to  conceal  from  it  the 
fact  that  the  matter  reduces  to  the  perfectly  simple 
question  that  Mr.  Smith  is  a  libertine  and  INIrs.  or 
Miss  Jones  is  a  prostitute  and  that  they  both  need 
to  be  converted. 

There  is  no  problem  about  it.  It  is  not  necessary 
to  send  anybody  to  Europe  to  investigate  foreign 
conditions.  The  simple  fact  is  and  the  plain  English 
of  it  is,  that  man  has  beastly  impulses  and  is  very 
likely  to  yield  to  them,  and  that  a  great  many  do 
yield  to  them.  That  is  the  beginning  and  the  end  of 
it  and  all  that  there  is  between. 

Now  this  policy  of  individualized  work  indicates 
the  proper  and  peculiar  function  of  the  Church.  I 
know  very  well  what  the  other  kind  means  and  that 
for  permanency  and  depth  of  result  it  is  utterly 
inadequate.  I  have  tried  it  and  I  know  its  worth  and 
its  worthlessness.  The  business  of  the  Church  is  to 
bring  people  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  one  by  one ; 


142  The  Pulpit  axd  the  Pew 

the  unit  method  is  the  only  method.  That  was 
Christ's  pohcy,  and  Christ's  poUcy  is  prescriptive. 

He  picked  twelve  men,  picked  them  one  by  one. 
The  crowd  ran  after  liim,  but  he  did  not  run  after  the 
crowd,  but  avoided  it  rather,  and  when  he  could  not 
otherwise  escape  it,  took  a  boat  and  shoved  out  to 
sea,  or  fed  it  and  sent  it  home. 

It  is  easier  and  pleasanter  in  our  efforts  for  the 
world's  improvement  to  generahze  than  it  is  to  par- 
ticularize. It  is  a  symptom  of  human  conceit  to 
prefer  working  in  large  ways  to  working  in  ways 
more  limited.  There  is  more  in  it  that  is  dramatic. 
It  is  human  nature  to  want  to  make  a  spectacle  of 
one's  self.  The  qualitative  is  not  in  as  high  repute 
as  the  quantitative.  We  put  upon  our  own  work  and 
the  work  of  others  an  arithmetic  estimate. 

Christ  did  not  attempt  to  convert  the  world,  nor 
even  Palestine,  nor  even  Galilee  or  Judea,  but  only 
twelve  men,  each  one  a  man  by  himself. 

If  when  Christ  had  started  in  to  gather  together 
his  little  group  of  disciples  he  had  pubUshed  an 
advertisement  that  he  wanted  to  have  collected  a 
congregation  of  all  the  fishermen  doing  business 
along  the  shores  of  the  sea  of  Gahlee  in  order  that 
he  might  have  an  opportunity  to  persuade  them  to 
give  up  their  business  and  engage  in  another  line  of 
pursuit,    they,    in    the    first    place,   would   not    have 


Responsibility  of  the  Church  143 

responded  to  the  advertisement,  and,  in  the  second 
phice,  of  those  who  might  have  come,  out  of  curiosity 
probably,  none,  or  few  if  any,  would  have  forsaken 
their  boats  and  fishing-tackle  and  have  thrown  in 
their  lot  with  the  new  adventurer. 

There  needs  the  personal  toucli,  and  that  is  largely 
sacrificed  in  a  crowd.  The  Samaritan  woman,  stand- 
ing alone  with  Jesus  at  Jacob's  well,  was  easily  drawn 
away  from  her  previous  life  and  became  herself 
presently  an  effective  gospel  teacher;  but  this  would 
scarcely  have  occurred  had  he  talked  to  her  as  one 
of  a  congregation,  instead  of  talking  "with  her  in  a 
manner  of  gentle,  familiar  intercourse. 

There  is  in  this  matter  of  individualizing  effort  for 
Christ  that  which  gives  both  to  preacher  and  people 
something  serious  to  think  upon.  We  are  somewhat 
off  from  the  track  upon  which  Christ  did  his  effective 
work  and  are  upon  a  track  of  our  own  choosing  which 
seems  to  be  condemned  by  the  feebleness  of  the  accru- 
ing results. 

This  does  not  obviate  the  necessity  for  places  of 
public  worship.  Christ  himself  honored  the  temple 
and  preached  in  a  synagogue ;  but  the  work  of  his 
that  was  fundamental,  that  laid  the  basis  upon  which 
all  subsequent  work  has  been  placed,  was  done  while 
he  was  in  the  intimate  attitude  of  face  to  face  relation 
with    such    ones    as   he    sought    to    draw    under    his 


144  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

authority  and  power  and  imbue  with  his  spirit. 
Whether  human  or  dirine,  it  is  personahty  after  all 
that  tells,  and  personality  too  in  its  direct  and  close 
and  indiridualized  pressure  upon  the  one  soul  that 
it  seeks  to  influence. 


VII 
DEALING  WITH  THE  FUNDAMENTALS 

It  would  have  been  greatly  to  the  advantage  of  the 
religious  world  if  it  had  clung  more  closely  and 
more  constantly  to  the  great  fundamental  truths  of 
our  holy  faith.  It  would  have  nurtured  more  effec- 
tively our  intellectual  powers,  for  great  belie^dng 
makes  great  knowing.  It  would  have  created  deeper 
soil  in  which  the  derivative  truths  of  the  gospel  would 
have  found  for  themselves  more  secure  rooting;  and 
in  that  way  would  have  operated  to  hold  behevers 
together  in  a  more  binding  fellowship  in  the  face  of 
the  divisive  influence  exerted  by  the  less  basic  doc- 
trines of  Christianity. 

It  is  on  that  account  that  we  who  preach  would 
be  rendering  to  our  congregations  a  special  and 
essential  service  if  we  would  hold  before  them,  at  a 
somewhat  different  angle  than  is  usual,  the  lessons 
comprised  in  what  we  sometimes  designate  as  the 
back  part  of  the  Bible. 

There  is  a  certain  majesty  of  tone  and  represen- 
tation characterizing  the  Old  Testament  Scripture, 
which  in  less  degree  distinguishes  the  New,  Each  of 
the  two  has  its  own  distinctive  service  to  render.    We 


146  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

are  sensible  of  moving  in  a  different  region  of 
thought  and  sentiment  on  moving  over  from  the 
territory  of  the  earher  part  of  the  Bible  to  the 
newer  part.  One  makes  a  mistake  in  forgetting  that, 
in  divine  truth  as  in  geography,  it  takes  two  conti- 
nents to  complete  the  world.  Or,  to  vary  the  illus- 
tration, the  older  and  more  colossal  verities  of  the 
Hebrew  Bible  concur  with  the  supplementary  gospel 
in  something  the  same  way  as  that  in  which  the 
heavier  foundations  of  an  edifice  combine  with  the 
superstructure  to  the  production  of  the  completed 
building,  whose  perfection  is  composed  not  of  beauty 
alone  but  of  beauty  and  stability. 

Consistently  with  the  contents  of  the  Old  Bible, 
and  with  the  requirements  of  a  safe  theology  and  of 
a  robust  Christian  character  and  life,  I  have  found 
myself  more  and  more  constrained,  by  the  condition  of 
current  thought,  to  lay  a  steadily  increasing  empha- 
sis upon  two  features  of  God's  character  that  find 
themselves  set  forth  with  special  insistence  in  the 
Hebrew  Bible ;  the  first  of  these  is  his  immutability. 

"The  word  of  our  God  shall  stand  forever."  The 
word  "stand"  is  a  great  word,  full  of  Saxon  ring. 
St.  Paul  uses  it  effectively  in  his  charge  to  the 
Ephesian  Christians:  "Wherefore  take  unto  you  the 
whole  armour  of  God,  that  ye  may  be  able  to  with- 
stand in  the  evil  day,  and  ha\ang  done  all  things  to 


Dealing  with  the  Fundamentals        147 

stand.  Stand  therefore."  Everything  with  which 
we  are  familiar  is  in  a  state  of  flux,  the  victim  of 
change.  The  air  is  full  of  currents  and  so  are  the 
rivers  and  the  seas.  Night  alternates  with  day.  The 
seasons  replace  each  other.  The  heavens  are  an  airy 
mass  of  instabihty.  Our  bodies  are  pursuing  an 
uninterrupted  career  of  decay  and  recovery,  death 
and  resurrection,  in  infinitesimal  installments.  Even 
considered  in  our  interior  condition  of  mind  and  senti- 
ment, were  we  to  meet  ourselves  as  we  were  thirty  or 
forty  years  ago,  we  should  scarcely  know  ourselves. 
Mutation  is  the  law  of  the  universe.  "The  grass 
withereth,  the  flower  fadeth,  but  the  word  of  our  God 
shall  stand  forever."  "With  whom  is  no  variableness, 
neither  shadow  of  turning." 

So  considered,  the  divine  character  makes  no 
appeal  to  sentiment.  The  rock  upon  which  we  con- 
struct may  guarantee  the  security  of  the  building  we 
erect  upon  it,  yet  so  far  forth  is  destitute  of  all 
aff^ectional  quality.  Neither  massiveness  or  flintiness 
is  in  itself  lovable.  The  eternal  unchangeableness  of 
God  is,  Avhen  viewed  in  itself,  unseasoned  by  any 
gospel  flavor.  It  ma}-  utilize  itself  in  the  service  of 
the  gospel,  but  is  not  itself  gospel.  The  substructure 
of  the  house  you  live  in  may  utihze  itself  in  the  semace 
of  the  apartments  you  occupy,  but  is  not  itself 
habitable. 


148  The  Pulpit  axd  the  Pew 

In  our  reading  of  the  Bible,  particularly  of  the 
Old  Testament  and  still  more  particularly  of  the 
Psalms,  we  have  observed  with  how  great  frequency 
the  steadfastness  of  God  is  emphasized  and  how  often 
it  is  represented  under  the  figure  of  a  rock.  Eternal 
solidity  was  the  aspect  under  which  God  disclosed 
liimself  to  the  Hebrew  mind.  FamiHar  examples,  all 
of  them  taken  from  the  Psalms,  are  the  following: 
"Unto  thee  will  I  cry,  O  Lord,  my  rock" ;  "Thou  art 
my  rock  and  my  fortress" ;  "Lead  me  unto  the  rock 
that  is  liigher  than  I" ;  "God  only  is  my  rock" ;  "God 
is  the  rock  of  my  heart  and  my  portion  forever." 
It  is  written  in  the  prophecy  of  Isaiah,  "In  the  Lord 
Jehovah  is  the  rock  of  ages." 

There  is  a  quiet  subHmity  about  such  portraiture 
that  was  a  feature  of  Hebrew  faith  and  consequently 
a  feature  of  Hebrew  life.  If  our  character  deteiTnines 
for  us  to  some  extent  our  conception  of  God,  our 
conception  of  God  also  determines  for  us  our  char- 
acter. We  shall  not  be  altogether  unlike  the  thing 
that  we  realize  God  to  be, — not  simply  what  we 
picture  him  or  imagine  liim  to  be,  but  what  we  feel 
him  as  he  is,  is  the  final  secret  of  the  human  soul's 
true  godliness.  It  is  therefore  that  we  study  him  as 
we  are  doing  this  afternoon,  not  that  we  may  carry 
away  an  intellectual  portrait  of  him  to  be  hung  before 
our  thoughts  for  occasional  inspection,  but  that  by 


Dealing  with  the  Fundamentals         149 

holding  ourselves  close  to  him  in  this  character  which 
is  comprised  in  liim  we  may  have  the  like  character 
fostered  in  ourselves,  in  accordance  with  that  law  of 
all  culture  whereby  we  grow  into  the  likeness  of  that 
wliich  we  behold. 

And  so  I  say  that  that  experience  which  the  great 
religious  statesmen  of  Hebrew  times  had  of  a  certain 
rigidity  inherent  in  the  Divine  Being  reproduced  that 
quality  in  themselves  and  made  them  the  towers  of 
strength  which  the  history  of  those  days  demon- 
strated them  to  have  been. 

Undoubtedly^  to  use  the  word  "rigidity"  as  expres- 
sive of  any  feature  of  God's  character  is  liable  to 
produce  a  degree  of  surprise  if  not  of  resentment. 
That  hability  is  in  part  the  reason  why  I  have  used 
it,  for  such  an  effect  it  ought  not  to  produce.  And 
I  would  go  still  farther  and  say  that  the  liability  to 
be  so  affected  by  the  use  of  the  term  as  an  expression 
of  one  aspect  of  God's  being  is  one  of  the  prevalent 
and  serious  defects  in  the  thoughts  which  men  have 
of  God  at  the  present  time,  a  defect  therefore  which 
naturally  reproduces  itself  in  the  present-day  char- 
acter and  actions  of  men,  for,  as  remarked  a  moment 
ago,  men  will  very  largely  be  what  they  sincerely 
realize  God  to  be.  And  that  that  feature  of  rigidity 
is  one  which  asserts  itself  less  emphatically  now  than 
in  the  times  of  old  Hebrew  nobility  is  made  evident 


150       The  Pulpit  axd  the  Pew 

by  everything  like  an  appreciative  reading  of  the 
Hebrew  Scriptures ;  and  that  it  asserts  itself  less 
emphatically  now  than  fifty  years  ago  is  easily 
enough  recognized  by  those  who  have  followed  the 
drift  of  religious  tendency  during  the  past  half 
century. 

Rigidity,  however,  is  not  obstinacy.  Obstinacy 
is  pride  of  will ;  it  is  the  desire  to  have  one's  way  for 
the  sake  of  having  it.  It  is  a  mean  quality  and  is  the 
product  of  human  littleness  and  would  be  the  product 
of  divine  littleness  if  the  divine  could  be  httle.  Great 
things  can  be  explained  by  small ;  it  is  that  feature  in 
a  human  parent,  rigidity  is,  b}^  which  he  is  held  fixed 
and  unrelenting  in  the  grasp  of  those  principles  of 
character  and  administration  in  which  he  has  become 
established  and  wliich  he  cherishes  as  criterion  of 
conduct  and  as  rule  of  government.  It  is  not  antago- 
nistic to  affection,  but  it  lies  back  of  affection ;  may 
be  exceedingly  serviceable  to  affection,  as  the  rocky 
hills  give  support  to  the  drapery  of  verdure  with 
which  their  slopes  are  clad ;  but  the  rockiness  is  not 
itself  verdure,  nor  fragrance,  nor  blossom. 

And  those  are  the  best  and  the  greatest  fathers. 
There  may  not  be  in  them  much  or  even  any  of  that 
affectionate  pliancy  that  we  are  more  likely  to  find 
on  the  maternal  side  and  to  which  the  child  is  apt  to 
resort  in  its  efforts  to  secure  for  itself  those  things 


Dealing  with  the  Fundamentals        151 

which  paternal  fixity  of  principle  may  disallow.  And 
there  may  be  sometimes  in  such  fathers  a  certain  lack 
of  graciousness  that  leaves  the  rigidity  bare  and  too 
much  in  eAddence  to  render  to  the  children  its  best 
effects,  for,  valuable  as  foundation  stone  is,  it  serves 
its  purpose  best  when  built  over  with  superstructure ; 
and,  massive  and  stalwart  as  are  the  hills  of  granite, 
they  make  their  sweetest  contributions  to  the  land- 
scape when  they  are  so  mantled  with  a  vesture  of 
Hvins  screen  that  we  are  able  to  feel  the  massiveness 
of  them  without  being  made  too  conscious  of  the 
unsentimental  geology  out  of  which  that  massiveness 
is  composed. 

And  yet,  when  we  have  said  all  of  that,  there  has 
been  no  abandonment  of  the  position  here  contended 
for.  The  human  father,  loyal  to  the  principles  of 
character  and  of  administrative  rectitude  in  which 
he  stands  intrenched,  if  he  be  a  true  father,  ^vi\\  not 
yield  to  the  child's  attempt  to  wrench  him  from  the 
grip  of  those  principles,  cannot  yield  ^rithout  a 
breach  of  fatherhood.  The  child  must  bend  to  the 
father  and  not  the  father  to  the  child,  and,  if  the 
child  could  but  know  enough  to  realize  all  that  that 
means,  it  would  be  the  child's  supreme  joy  that  to  it 
and  not  to  the  father  belongs  the  privilege  of  pliancy. 

That,  then,  is  the  first  fact  that  comes  to  the  front 
in  all  fatherhood,  human  and  dirine,  and  therefore 


152  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

it  is  to  the  setting  forth  of  that  fact  that  the  intro- 
ductory portions  of  Scripture  revelation  are  devoted. 
The  old  Hebrew  Bible  is  a  great  book,  and  those  who 
never  respire  its  atmosphere  nor  allow  their  thoughts 
to  move  through  the  superb  and  massive  scenery  of 
its  delineations  of  the  Divine  Being,  deprive  them- 
selves of  a  religious  tonic  as  essential  to  strong  and 
elevated  living  today  as  it  was  before  the  times  of 
the  Advent,  when  the  coming  of  the  Lord  at  Bethle- 
hem lay  in  the  thought  of  the  world  only  as  a  great 
prophetic  dream. 

Christ  never  dechned  the  Old  Testament.  We  must 
never  forget  that  that  was  the  only  Bible  there  was 
when  he  Hved  and  preached.  That  he  overspread 
with  a  vesture  of  warm  light,  or  with  a  mantle  of 
alluring  verdure,  the  stern  heights  of  old  unyielding 
truth  no  man  who  knows  the  gospel  will  be  able  to 
deny;  but  neither  the  warm  Hght  nor  the  alluring 
verdure  has  rubbed  out  the  rocky  heights,  or  made 
soft  and  plastic  their  original  density.  That  is  a 
God  that  is  worth  worshiping.  That  is  a  Father  that 
the  world  may  well  be  proud  of:  a  God  for  the  world 
to  grow  up  toward,  instead  of  a  divine  apology  mini- 
mizing itself  and  accommodating  itself  to  the  world's 
pettiness. 

I  do  not  understand  how  any  one,  however  loose 
in  his  thinking  or  careless  and  invertebrate  in  his 


Dealing  with  the  Fundamentals         153 

livinff,  can  give  his  thought  to  considerations  of  the 
kind  just  presented  without  experiencing  a  sort  of 
inward  bracing-up,  stifFening-up,  if  you  please,  as 
though  an  infusion  of  iron  had  somehow  been  con- 
veyed  into  the  interior  of  his  moral  constitution.  To 
men  and  women  of  the  species  that  rather  widely 
abounds,  Avhose  lives  are  rubber  and  their  conception 
of  divine  things  composed  principally  of  unproduc- 
tive elasticity,  the  contemplation  of  God  as  one  who 
in  the  deep  recesses  of  his  being  possesses  more  than 
the  massive  rockiness  of  the  great  hills  and  the  high 
mountains,  must  come  with  the  power  of  vast  sur- 
prise, not  unmingled  with  pain,  even  at  the  very 
moment  that  it  throws  the  soul  back  upon  itself  in 
thought  fulness  and  seriousness. 

And  the  first  thought  of  such  a  soul,  if  it  is  an 
honest  and  searching  thought,  will  be:  If  God  is 
not  going  to  bend  to  me,  then  I  shall  have  to  bend  to 
him  or  there  can  be  no  abiding  peace  between  liiin  and 
me,  either  present  or  eternal.  That  is  what  the  child 
comes  to  before  it  is  through  with  its  struggle  with 
the  human  father  of  the  kind  that  I  have  been  depict- 
ing. There  are  fathers  that  give  up  to  the  chil- 
dren,— unfortunate  fathers,  more  unfortunate  cliil- 
dren,— fathers  that  relax  the  straight  line  of 
rectitude,  that  suspend  the  righteousness  and  the 
proper  authoritativeness  of  fatherhood  at  the  demand 


154  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

of  the  young  anarchists  and  nihilists  that  breed  at 
the  hearthstone. 

But  the  other  Father  that  we  have  to  deal  with  is  of 
different  fiber.  We  and  the  mountains  can  meet 
together,  but  we  have  to  go  where  the  mountains  are. 
We  and  God  can  meet  together,  but  we  have  to  go 
where  God  is.  There  is  an  old  view  of  salvation,  that  I 
have  seen  dramatically  acted  out  on  the  revivahstic 
stao-e,  to  the  effect  that  Christ's  office  is  to  stand  as  a 
shield  whereby  man  may  be  protected  from  the  anger 
of  God,  and  stand  as  a  persuasive  whereby  God  may 
be  constrained  to  alter  his  attitude  toward  sinful 
man  and  to  condone  what  his  righteousness  would 
have  condemned  had  that  righteousness  not  been 
plead  with  and  reasoned  with.  But  the  word  of 
Scripture  is  that  "God  was  in  Christ  reconcihng  the 
world  unto  himself,"  not  reconcihng  himself  unto  the 
world.  God's  moral  inflexibility  forbids  liis  lowering 
himself  to  the  level  of  sin,  but  there  is  no  surrender 
of  that  infiexibihty,  but  rather  its  assertion,  in  using 
means  whereby  the  sinner  may  be  lifted  to  the  level 
of  God's  righteousness. 

It  is  the  same  principle  that  operates  in  human 
fatherhood  of  the  best  type.  The  disobedience  of  the 
child  creates  a  distance  between  it  and  its  father. 
That  distance  is  not  going  to  be  traversed  by  the 
father.    If  father  and  child  get  together  again  it  will 


Dealing  with  the  Fundamentals         155 

be  because  the  child  has  come  to  the  father,  not  the 
father  to  the  child.  In  the  story  of  the  Prodigal  the 
wayward  boy  had  to  return  from  the  far  country  to 
his  home;  the  father  did  not  move  the  home  out  into 
the  far  country.  That  feature  of  the  story  wherein 
the  father  is  represented  as  watching  for  his  boy's 
return  and  seeing  him  while  he  was  still  afar  off, 
demonstrates  graphically  the  mellowness  and  the 
yearning  intensity  of  the  parental  affection ;  never- 
theless he  did  not  go  to  the  boy ;  the  boy  had  to  come 
to  him.  There  is  inflexibihty.  There  is  rock.  But 
there  is  no  inconsistency  between  the  granite  ledge 
and  the  flowers  that  bloom  just  above  it.  The 
flowers  help  to  disguise  the  rock  and  the  rock  helps 
to  hold  the  flowers  in  steadiness  and  strength. 

And  that  is  the  note  upon  which  I  desire  that  our 
meditation  upon  this  first  attribute  of  God  should 
close — the  rock  helps  to  hold  the  flowers  in  steadiness 
and  strength.  Just  as  the  solidity  of  the  foundation 
of  an  edifice  communicates  itself  to  every  part  of  the 
superstructure  imposed  upon  it,  so  the  rigidity,  the 
unchangeableness  that  we  may  think  of  as  the  basal 
element  in  the  divine  character,  enters  to  secure  fixity 
and  strong  durability  in  every  one  of  the  divine 
qualities  to  which  it  gives  support. 

The  element  of  which  we  are  speaking  enters  into 
God's  justice  to  render  it  adamantine.    We  know  that 


156  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

we  can  depend  upon  his  doing  right  by  us,  deahng 
with  us  forever  and  ever  upon  principles  of  absolute 
righteousness.  The  full  strength  and  determination 
of  his  infinite  personality  are  in  it.  He  can  never  do 
any  wrong,  neither  can  he  ever  regard  sin  with  any 
degree  of  allowance.  We  might  sometimes  wish  that 
he  could  and  would,  and,  because  some  have  encour- 
aged themselves  in  imagining  that  he  can  and  does, 
they  have  ceased  to  cherish  for  him  the  respect  due 
to  no  one,  either  human  or  divine,  who  makes  a  con- 
venience of  his  principles.  To  realize  his  unswerving 
holiness  in  character,  act  and  dealing  may  not  draw 
out  our  hearts  toward  him  affectionately,  but  it 
challenges  our  respect,  it  holds  our  regard  toward 
him  reverently ;  if  we  have  not  learned  to  appreciate 
what  Scripture  calls  the  beauty  of  holiness,  it 
impresses  us  by  its  solemn  purity,  and  it  sounds  a 
note  into  harmonious  accord  with  which  we  somehow 
feel  that  the  music  of  the  world  will  eventually  be 


sung. 


The  element  of  which  we  are  speaking  enters,  of 
course,  into  the  structure  and  pursuance  of  all  of 
God's  purposes.  With  God  planning  means  ultimate 
execution,  for  the  entire  massive  rigidity  of  his  per- 
sonality is  in  what  he  sets  himself  toward.  We  believe 
that,  and  our  life  of  service,  service  to  our  fellows  and 
to  our  times,  would  be  a  far  quieter,  steadier,  sweeter 


Dealing  with  the  Fundamentals        157 

service  if  only  we  realized  it  as  well  as  believed  it.  It 
w(  uld  correct  our  impulsiveness  and  hysteria ;  it 
would  Anthdraw  the  chill  from  our  anxieties  and 
reconstruct  our  pessimism  into  cheerful  and  confident 
expectancy.  We  should  drive  our  steeds  with  the 
glad  assurance  of  the  little  child  through  whose 
hands  the  reins  are  passed  but  held  in  the  grip  of  the 
charioteer  who  sits  beliind. 

And  then,  best  of  all,  or  at  any  rate  most  com- 
forting of  all,  this  same  element  of  God's  unchange- 
ableness,  immense  unchangeableness,  enters  into  his 
love,  making  it  massive  and  eternal. 

There  is  a  great  difference  in  love.  There  is  love 
that  is  irresolute ;  love  that  is  passionate  and  burns 
itself  out ;  love  that  is  a  misnomer  for  phj^sical  selfish- 
ness ;  love  that  puts  a  complexion  upon  hfe  without 
entering  deeply  enough  to  weave  itself  into  the  tissues 
of  life. 

It  is  a  crreat  tliina;  to  be  loved  when  the  lover  has 
invested  himself  in  his  love,  even  though  it  be  but  a 
human  love.  But  when  that  lover  is  a  divine  lover, 
Mhose  love  is  the  giving  himself  in  all  liis  fullness  and 
with  that  unvarying  persistency  of  affection  that 
means  love  clear  out  to  the  end, — a  love  that  does  not 
forget,  that  is  never  chilled,  never  becomes  weary 
while  the  da3^s  pass  and  the  centuries  go  by,  then  we 
can  thank  God  that  he  is  the  Rock  of  Ages  in  whose 


158  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

cleft  we  can  abide,  amid  the  \'icissitudes  of  the  pres- 
ent, and  in  the  face  of  the  vast  unknown  into  the 
midst  of  which  we  are  being  hurried  by  the  flight  of 
the  3^ears. 

The  second  feature  of  the  divine  character  to  be 
noted  for  the  basal  simplicity  of  its  Old  Testament 
representation  is  that  of  God's  unity  as  opposed  to 
any  theory  of  tri-personahty.  Tliis  is  a  matter  of 
concern  to  us,  not  from  any  mere  academic  or  theo- 
logic  interest  in  the  questions  involved,  but  because  of 
its  practical  relation  to  us  as  preachers  and  to  those 
that  we  preach  to. 

The  custom  has  extensively  prevailed,  and  in  some 
quarters  been  industriously  fostered,  of  making  the 
acceptance  of  verbal  statements  of  truth  essential  to 
entrance  into  the  kingdom  of  our  Lord.  This  has 
been  a  stumbling-block  to  many,  and  especially  to 
those  who  have  been  intellectually  disciplined,  and 
whose  natural  tendency  it  therefore  is  to  try  to  reduce 
the  problems  of  the  heavenly  kingdom  to  their  philo- 
sophic solution  rather  than  to  come  in  under  the 
power  of  that  kingdom  and  to  become  participant  in 
its  benefits  and  perquisites. 

We  are  not  questioning  the  honesty  of  the  impulse 
prompting  them  to  submit  such  problems  to  intel- 
lectual test,  but  we  should  all  of  us  be  reminded  of 
this,  that  if  the  abiUty  to  construe  and  to  translate 


Dealing  with  the  Fundamentals         159 

into  the  terms  of  human  thouglit  the  doctrines  of 
Christianity  was  essential  to  membership  in  Christ's 
kingdom,  the  system  never  would  have  been  sub- 
mitted by  him  to  the  acceptance  of  people  in  general, 
regardless  of  their  condition  of  culture  or  of  the  lack 
of  it,  and  especially  would  he  never  have  indicated 
that  to  none  are  the  doors  of  entrance  into  the  king- 
dom so  widely  open  as  to  the  children.  In  such 
matters  we  are  to  accept  the  e^ddent  intention  of 
Christ  rather  than  the  insistence  of  the  professional 
theologian. 

The  harmful  feature  of  the  situation  lies  in  this, 
that  these  statements,  whether  occurring  outside  of 
Scripture  or  inside  of  it,  are  treated  as  being  in  such 
way  an  inherent  element  of  Christianity,  that  they 
require  to  be  accepted;  and  not  only  that,  but  their 
significance  understood  before  one's  citizenship  in  the 
kingdom  can  be  established.  So  that  with  the  class 
of  people  that  we  are  just  now  considering,  years  and 
3^ears  of  suspended  judgment  go  by,  with  the  door 
of  the  kingdom  perfectly  open,  and  yet  not  entered 
because  of  the  difficulty  of  bringing  about  an  adjust- 
ment between  human  intelligence  and  the  truths 
purporting  to  be  offered  to  that  intelligence. 

Now  assuming  that  these  people  are  absolutely 
honest,  we  cannot  ask  them  to  accept  any  truth 
which   they  can  accept   only  under  mental  protest. 


160  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

We  only  confuse  confusion  by  accepting  in  a  formal 
way  that  which,  with  intellectual  integrity,  we  decline. 
Enforced  belief  is  no  belief,  and  to  cherish  an  enforced 
belief  is  to  foster  mental  and  moral  disintegration. 
It  is  an  attempt  to  project  ourselves  in  two  directions 
at  the  same  time,  and  cleavage  is  certain  to  eventu- 
ate. It  is  just  as  necessar}'^  to  be  true  to  ourselves 
as  to  be  true  to  the  truth,  and  the  former  of  the  two 
conditions  the  latter. 

A  truth,  no  matter  how  true  it  be,  is  of  value  to  us 
only  to  the  degree  in  which  it  is  adjustable  to  our 
mentality.  It  is  like  food  which  becomes  to  us  a  bit 
of  nutriment  only  to  the  extent  that  it  is  digestible. 
That  is  not  saying  that  it  is  not  inherently  nutritious, 
but  that  it  is  nutritious  only  up  to  the  measure  of  the 
energy  possessed  by  the  digestive  organs. 

I  look  at  a  page  of  Chinese.  One  look  is  enough. 
But  I  do  not  curse  it.  I  do  not  stamp  upon  it.  I  do 
not  even  deny  it.  I  simply  lay  it  one  side.  There 
may  be  mind  in  that  page.  There  may  be  truth  in 
that  page  although  it  doesn't  look  so.  The  page  and 
myself  do  not  get  together.  It  and  I  clearly  think 
our  thoughts  in  different  linguistic  key.  We  cannot 
conclude  that  the  page  is  foohsh.  The  presumption 
is  rather  that  there  is  meaning  in  it.  But  I  turn  it 
down,  not  because  I  am  foolish,  and  not  because  I  am 
wicked.     I  may  be  a  good  scholar ;  I  may  be  fairly 


Dealing  with  the  Fuxdamektals        161 

respectable  in  character ;  I  hope  so ;  but  I  don't  know 
Chinese.  I  simply  am  not  up  to  it.  Perhaps  some- 
time I  shall  grow  to  it. 

Now  there  is  a  great  deal  of  Chinese  in  the  Bible. 
And  if  there  is  an^-thing  divine  about  the  book,  there 
ought  to  be.  Some  time  since  I  undertook  to  read  a 
book  that  was  learnedly  occupied  with  discussing  the 
constitution  of  matter.  The  volume  opened  in  an 
easy  wa}'  such  that  my  thought,  although  not  scien- 
tifically trained  in  such  matters,  could  without  much 
difficulty  keep  up  with  the  author's  presentation. 
But  he  soared  to  heights  to  wliich  my  unfledged  wings 
declined  to  carry  me,  and  the  last  three  quarters  of 
the  volume  had  to  remain  unread.  That  much  of  it 
meant  nothing  to  me.  To  say  that  I  accepted  the 
contents  of  the  entire  volume  would  signify  nothing 
except  that  I  presumed  that  the  author  knew  what  he 
was  writing  about.  To  sav  that  I  denied  the  truth 
of  the  last  two  hundred  pages  would  have  been  a  con- 
fession of  my  stupidity,  for  it  would  have  been  to 
claim  that  my  mind  was  the  measure  of  all  truth  and 
that  whatever  did  not  adjust  itself  to  my  intelligence 
thereby  condemned  itself  as  false. 

A  prominent  educator  from  Eastern  New  England, 
who  frequently  exploits  his  rejection  of  certain  doc- 
trines set  forth  in  the  New  Testament,  has  recently 
repeated  himself  and  publicly  denounced  Justification 


162  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

by  Faith,  Atonement  and  the  Trinity-  Now  all  that 
that  really  denotes  is  that  those  doctrines  do  not 
adjust  themselves  to  his  intelligence.  They  may  be 
true,  they  may  be  false.  But  all  that  can  be  signi- 
fied by  his  denial  of  them  is  that  they  refuse  to  gear 
into  his  mental  machinery.  That  may  be  the  fault 
of  the  doctrines ;  or  it  might  be  the  fault  of  his 
machinery.  The  consciousness  which  he  is  known  to 
have  of  the  excellence  of  that  machinery  naturally 
leads  him  to  attribute  the  fault  to  the  doctrines. 

If  he  had  stopped  with  saying  that  the  doctrines 
really  meant  nothing  to  him,  as  you  would  say  upon 
looking  at  a  page  of  Chinese,  or  in  listening  to  an 
Indian  address  given  in  the  language  of  the  Choc- 
taws,  we  would  acquit  him  of  presumption.  But  flatly 
and  uncompromisingly  to  deny  a  positive  proposition 
that  has  any  degree  of  respectable  authority  back  of 
it,  is  intellectual  arrogance,  for  it  is  to  lay  claim  to 
the  possession  of  a  mind  that  is  itself  the  measure  of 
truth;  and  there  is  only  one  Mind  of  whom  that  is 
predicable.  It  is  neither  prudent  nor  becoming  to 
pronounce  one's  self  in  detailed  terms  of  finahty  in 
regard  to  matters  either  scientific,  etliical  or 
religious. 

Some  room  should  always  be  left  for  expansion 
possible  to  be  secured  by  later  research  or  experience. 
The  Church  has  been  an  off'ender  at  tliis  point  in  its 


Dealing  with  the  Fundamentals        163 

relation  to  certain  scientific  theories,  and  in  its 
dog-matic  denial  of  their  truth.  If,  when  the  leaders 
of  the  new  astronomy  announced  the  doctrine  of  the 
earth's  revolution  around  the  sun,  the  Church  had 
been  contented  simply  not  to  accept  the  theory 
instead  of  blankly  denying  it  and  castigating  poor 
Galileo  for  suggesting  it,  the  Church  would  have 
saved  its  credit  and  would  have,  in  a  way,  promoted 
scientific  investigation  instead  of  doing  what  it  has 
rather  uniformly  done,  discouraged  such  investiga- 
tion. It  has  been  too  much  given  to  "knowing  what 
isn't  so,"  and  denying  what  is  so. 

And  it  is  the  same  kind  of  offense,  only  committed 
against  religious  doctrines  instead  of  against  scien- 
tific ones,  that  is  practiced  by  men  Hke  the  educator 
just  mentioned,  when  they  denounce  a  doctrine  of 
religion,  not  simply  leave  it  one  side,  but  denounce 
it.  One  such  doctrine  is  that  which  appears  in  evan- 
gelical phraseology  under  the  title  of  the  Trinity. 
This  is  accounted  a  troublesome  doctrine.  If  by 
that  is  meant  that  it  does  not  explain  itself  to  human 
thought,  I  do  not  understand  why  it  should  be 
considered  troublesome. 

For  even  the  world  of  common,  everyday  things 
that  we  live  in  the  midst  of,  is  at  least  nine  tenths  of 
it  a  mystery.  For  a  thing  not  to  be  mysterious 
means  mostly  that  we  have  become  so  accustomed  to 


164  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

it  that  we  have  forgotten  that  we  do  not  understand 
it.  Nobody  is  troubled  about  gravity,  about  the 
phenomena  of  electricity,  about  how  it  is  that  Avhat 
we  receive  as  bread  becomes  transmuted  into  flesh. 
Even  science  does  not  at  all  explain  such  things. 
All  that  it  does  is  to  tell  us  what  exists,  to  state  to 
us  the  facts.  This  would  be  a  very  wearisome  world 
if  we  fretted  ourselves  about  mundane  mysteries  in 
the  way  that  some  disquiet  themselves  over  celestial 
ones. 

It  is  certainly  a  very  pleasant  thing  to  be  able  to 
resolve  a  mystery  into  an  idea  that  is  thorouglily 
intelhgible.  Even  if  nothing  more  it  is  gratifying 
to  our  intellectual  pride.  We  always  feel  better 
about  ourselves  when  we  have  done  a  difficult  thing. 
We  acquire  an  added  self-respect.  But  one  of  the 
charms  of  the  world's  arrangements  is  this,  that  we 
do  not  need  ordinarily  to  understand  tilings  in  order 
to  get  the  benefit  of  them.  Light  is  just  as  illumi- 
nating whether  we  have  or  have  not  given  attention 
to  the  science  of  optics.  Flowers  are  exactly  as 
fragrant  whether  we  are  or  are  not  botanists.  It 
may  not  have  occurred  to  you  that  that  is  one  of  the 
world's  interesting  and  benevolent  features. 

It  looks  as  though  it  were  the  Creator's  thought 
that  we  were  not  going  to  have  mind  enough  or  time 
to  secure  mind  enough  to  understand  tilings  and  that 


Dealing  with  the  Fundamentals        165 

therefore  he  would  shape  them  in  a  way  to  give  us 
the  comfort  and  the  blessing  of  them  even  without 
the  understanding  of  them. 

Theologians  spend  considerable  time  seeking  to 
penetrate  the  mysteries  of  spiritual  realities,  the 
nature  of  the  Divine  Being  among  other  matters. 
Whether  they  know  more  about  him  than  the  rest  of 
us,  so  far  as  pure  intellectual  discernment  is  con- 
cerned, is  an  open  question.  But  it  does  not  appear 
that  they  are  made  any  better  Christians  by  the 
fruits  of  their  intellectual  research.  So  that  in 
religion,  just  as  in  botany  and  in  optics  and  acoustics, 
matters  are  di%nnely  shaped  and  engineered  so  as  to 
yield  us  the  blessing  without  a  pre^aous  compre- 
hension on  our  part  of  the  mystery  of  the  shaping 
and  the  engineering. 

My  earthly  father,  for  example,  was  a  kind  of 
trinity  of  bod}',  mind  and  spirit,  but  I  never  dissected 
him  either  with,  a  scalpel  or  by  my  psychology ;  yet 
I  did  not  on  that  account  receive  from  him  any  less 
paternal  benefit  and  blessing ;  rather  more  probably. 
The  astronomers  have  latterly  learned  something  as 
to  the  materials  of  which  the  sun  is  composed,  but  it 
does  not  result  from  that,  that  it  fills  our  eyes  with 
any  more  light  than  it  did  before,  or  that  it  warms 
the  earth  into  any  more  abundant  productiveness. 
That  anything  which  purports  to  be  a  divine  revela- 


166  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

tion  should  contain  intimations  that  put  into  a 
condition  of  query  minds  that  have  a  natural  passion 
for  solving  conundrums,  whether  human  or  divine 
ones,  is  entirely  explicable. 

One  such  suggestion  is  that  of  the  existence  in  God 
of  some  sort  of  threefoldness.  But  it  does  not  go 
beyond  the  point  of  suggestion,  and  the  very  variety 
of  form  under  which  it  is  made  is  sufficient  indication 
that  it  is  not  important  that  we  should  have  framed 
to  our  minds  any  definite  conception  of  it.  And 
nobody  has  any  such  definite  conception,  or  if  there 
be  such  an  one  who  imagines  that  he  has  figured  out 
the  arithmetic  of  Deity,  his  very  presumption  convicts 
him  of  folly. 

There  is  one  thing,  however,  that  at  that  point 
should  not  go  without  the  saying,  that  whatever  may 
be  the  solution  of  the  problem  of  what  we  call  the 
Trinity  that  solution  cannot  be  expressed  by  saying, 
as  the  old  catechism  does,  that  there  are  three  persons 
in  the  Trinity.  That  is  polytheism ;  that  sets  before 
us  three  gods  and  is  false  to  the  genius  of  the  Chris- 
tian, as  it  is  to  the  Jewish  religion.  That  there  is  one 
only  Being  that  can  be  called  God  is  the  fundamental 
doctrine  of  our  holy  faith.  It  is  a  doctrine  to  stand 
by,  to  be  preached  without  any  quiver  or  reservation 
in  the  sanctuary  and  woven  into  all  the  religious 
instruction  given  to   the  children.      I  had  a  triune 


Dealing  with  the  Fuxdamextals         167 

earthly  father,  but  I  had  not  three  fathers.  And  it 
was  of  infinitely  greater  concern  to  nie  to  realize  the 
oneness  of  that  father  than  it  was  to  understand  how 
the  three  elements  that  were  in  liim  could  combine  in 
one  father.  If  my  consciousness  of  him  had  engaged 
itself  with  the  arithmetic  of  his  nature  instead  of 
with  the  disclosures  of  himself  that  came  to  me  out  of 
the  diverse  and  abounding  fullness  of  that  nature, 
then  I  should  practically  have  been  fatherless  at  the 
very  moment  that  I  was  strenuously  stri^-ing  to  com- 
prehend the  mj^stery  of  his  manifoldness. 

Studying  the  problems  of  Christianity  is  not  itself 
Christianity,  and  does  not  prepare  one  to  be  a  Chris- 
tian, any  more  than  studying  optics  helps  a  blind 
man  to  see.  That  is  not  to  den}'  the  interest  that 
attaches  to  these  problems  nor  the  intellectual 
strength  that  comes  from  mentally  grapphng  with 
them.  But  bright  minds  are  making  the  mistake  of 
their  lives  in  tr3nng  to  enter  the  kingdom  of  heaven 
over  a  roadwa}-  of  clarified  and  settled  doctrinal 
opinions  in  regard  to  questions  which,  from  the  ver}'- 
nature  of  the  case,  intelligences  of  the  most  gigantic 
type  can  hardly  touch.  Remembering  our  humanness 
it  is  sacrilege  to  attempt  probing  the  mysteries  of 
the  divine  nature. 

It  sometimes  seems  as  though  the  apparently  con- 
tradictorv  wavs  in  which  some  of  the  deep  sugges- 


168  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

tions  in  Scripture  are  put  are  for  the  purpose  of 
warning  us  away  from  the  intricacies  of  the  dirine 
mind  and  constitution,  as  though  to  tell  us  that  our 
only  concern  is  with  so  much  of  heavenly  light  as  falls 
easily  and  naturally  into  our  eye  and  so  much  of 
heavenly  warmth  as  wins  unconstrained  access  to  our 
heart,  but  that  the  foundations  of  it  all  and  its 
unspeakable  mechanism  lie  back  undisclosed  and 
unrevealed  in  God's  own  eternal  consciousness. 

And  not  only  does  the  general  tenor  of  Scripture 
carry  that  idea  with  it,  but  in  instances  we  are 
definitely  instructed  that  to  construe  or  even  to 
attempt  to  construe  the  great  realities  of  God  into 
terms  of  human  thought  and  map  out  intellectually 
the  varied  regions  of  the  Divine  Being,  is  false  to  the 
purpose  of  revelation  and  utterly  Avithout  the  bounds 
of  human  faculty. 

A  marked  instance  of  this  is  stated  in  Christ's  own 
words  as  recorded  in  the  eleventh  chapter  of  Matthew, 
where  he  says,  "No  man  knoweth  the  Son  but  the 
Father."  Now  if  we  take  that  for  what  it  says, 
there  is  an  end,  or  ought  to  be,  of  all  fine  argumenta- 
tion, or  imagination,  or  guesswork,  about  all  such 
matters  as  the  interrelation  of  what,  rather  pre- 
sumptuously, perhaps,  are  called  the  members  of  the 
Trinity. 

But   as  observed  already,  that  does  not  prevent 


Dealing  with  the  Fundamentals        169 

my  getting  the  benefit  of  it  all.  Personally  I  know 
nothing,  absolutely  nothing,  about  the  sun  in  the 
sky,  but  when  the  sun  rises  I  get  the  baptism  of  it, 
just  as  well  as  though  I  had  some  of  it  here  and  could 
take  it  into  the  chemical  laboratory  and  analyze  it. 

And  no  one  knows  better  than  those  whose  thoughts 
are  tied  up  into  a  hard  knot,  puzzling  over  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Trinity,  that  Christ's  coming  into  the 
world  was  a  kind  of  sun-rising  in  which,  without  at 
all  giving  to  the  intelligence  of  men  an  explanation 
either  of  himself  or  of  Divine  things  generally,  the 
Divine  Life  has  come  nearer  to  us,  or  we  have  come 
nearer  to  the  Divine  Life,  and  an  impression  left  upon 
the  soul  which  was  not  there  before,  as  the  risen  sun 
creates  darkness  into  light  and  warms  the  chill  that 
has  pervaded  the  night. 

And  the  closer  one  keeps  to  Christ  the  brighter  and 
warmer  the  light  that  he  stands  in  and  the  fuller  his 
sense  of  all  those  quahties  that  he  beUeves  to  inhere 
in  the  character  of  God.  Which  is  a  way  of  saying 
that  when  I  am  in  that  posture  God  touches  me. 
And  when  I  say  God  touches  me,  I  do  not  mean  any 
delegated  God  but  the  original  God,  the  only  God 
there  is.  That  is  what  I  want,  and  all  that  I  want 
or  need.  And  in  Christ  or  through  Christ — use 
whichever  preposition  you  prefer — I  secure  it.  How 
it  is  that  the  one  only  true  God  made  himself  present 


170  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

in  Christ  I  do  not  know  and  it  does  not  concern  me 
to  know.  But  whether  in  my  devotions  I  address 
myself  to  him  or  to  the  Father,  I  am  praying  to 
absolutely  the  same  person,  the  one  only  true  God ; 
I  am  not  a  polytheist. 

That  is  a  point  to  be  guarded.  There  is  a  Chris- 
tian polytheism  that  is  dangerous.  There  are  men 
who,  in  their  anxiety  not  to  be  unitarians,  attempt  to 
worship  three  Gods,  and  are  drawn  away  from  the 
one  only  original  by  allowing  themselves  to  become 
ensnarled  in  the  web  of  a  divine  triplicity.  I  may  be 
permitted  to  saj^  that  that  was  the  experience  of  the 
late  John  Bigelow,  as  confessed  in  his  posthumous 
volume,  a  religious  complication,  an  apostasy  to 
paganism,  from  which  he  was  not  recovered  till  far 
into  his  adult  years.  Orthodox  unitarianism,  with  all 
its  insufficiency,  is  better  than  trinitarian  polytheism. 

No  one  shall  surpass  us  in  our  loyalty  to  Jesus 
Christ,  but  it  is  only  to  the  one  only  true  God  who 
asserts  himself  in  Jesus  Christ  that  our  loyalty  is  due. 
There  is  no  room  in  Church  or  pulpit  for  anything 
less  than  honest  evangelicism,  but  it  must  be  an  evan- 
gelicism  that  rests  solidly  on  the  basis  of  the  one 
God,  eternally  one  and  immutable,  without  an}^  mist 
thrown  athwart  the  Divine  Face  by  theological 
refinements  or  any  confusion  wrought  in  the  human 
mind  by  philosopliical  discriminations. 


VIII 

THE  SANCTUARY  AND  SANCTUARY 
SERVICE 

It  is  the  sanctuary  that  constitutes  the  focal  point 
in  the  reHgious  Hfe  of  the  community.  Historically 
we  know  it  to  be  so.  Experimentally  we  feel  it  to  be 
so.  If  we  "have  been  planted  in  the  house  of  God," 
we  appreciate  the  significance  of  congregated 
worship.  We  have  learned  to  know  its  reflex  benefits, 
and  to  understand  the  philosophy  of  the  Scriptural 
injunction  "not  to  forsake  the  assembling  of  our- 
selves together." 

All  of  this  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  there  is 
a  certain  element  of  formality  in  the  appointment  of 
stated  places  of  convocation  and  in  the  erection  and 
dedication  of  particular  edifices  specifically  desig- 
nated to  the  purpose,  and  notwithstanding  the  fact 
that  it  is  one  of  the  features  of  the  Holy  Cit}'  come 
down  from  God  that  there  is  no  temple  to  be  found 
therein.  But  the  gait  at  which  we  move  in  our  reli- 
gious life  is  not  yet  so  spiritualized  that  we  can  afford 
to  dispense  with  more  or  less  of  unspiritual  crutch, 
and  a  stated  place  to  worship,  as  well  as  a  stated  day 
upon  which  to  worship,  will  continue  for  some  time 


172  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

still  to  be  essential  appurtenances  of  our  Christian 
life. 

Placing  the  emphasis,  then,  that  we  do  upon  the 
sanctuary,  it  is  not  possible  that  our  attention  should 
not  at  least  be  arrested  by  the  claim  that  its  influence 
is  a  diminishing  one,  and  that  while  formerly  those 
who  were  non-attendant  at  its  services  were  the 
exception,  now  those  who  are  attendant  are  the 
exception.  That  is  the  claim.  It  is  not  our  purpose 
to  argue  for  the  claim  or  against  it.  Religion  and 
arithmetic  have  very  little  to  do  with  each  other.  The 
reduction  of  piety  to  the  terms  of  the  addition  or 
multiplication  table  is  not  a  fascinating  proposition. 
Ecclesiastical  statistics  are  the  most  indigestible  of 
all  religious  pabulum.  Figures  will  not  lie,  but  liars 
figure.  But  more  important  than  the  question  of 
increase  or  of  decrease  is  the  fact  that  there  are  a 
great  many  who  are  not  church  attendants.  That 
fact  is  unquestionable  and  it  is  regrettable,  although 
it  should  never  be  forgotten  by  those  of  us  who  love 
just  such  a  sanctuary  as  that  in  which  we  are  accus- 
tomed to  gather,  that  the  true  and  original  taber- 
nacle is  after  all  the  individual  heart,  and  we  can 
never  tell  how  many  there  are  who  sincerely  worship 
God  in  that  liidden  sanctuary  who  never  meet  with  us 
in  the  temple  made  with  hands. 

Still,    religion    is    not    exclusively    an    individual 


The  Sanctuary  and  Sanctuary  Service  173 

matter.  It  is  also  a  social  matter.  It  is  an  influence 
which,  in  bringing  us  nearer  to  God,  in  the  same  pro- 
portion brings  us  nearer  to  each  other.  It  should  also 
be  mentioned  that  numbers  accentuate  the  power  of 
the  spoken  word.  The  hearts  of  listeners,  like  so 
many  reverberatory  surfaces,  enlarge  the  volume  of 
the  word's  influence.  There  is  a  deepening  of  impres- 
sion that  accrues  from  mutuality.  The  Apostle  in 
writing  to  the  Christians  at  Rome  says,  "I  want  to 
be  comforted  by  the  mutual  faith  both  of  you  and 
me" ;  which  is  to  say  that  a  sense  of  one  another's 
faith  really  conduces  to  an  increase  of  each  one's 
faith.  It  is  a  case  where  the  larger  the  divisor  the 
larger  the  quotient — not  smaller. 

So  that  till  the  circumstances  of  life  change  and 
till  human  nature  changes,  something  which  is  at 
least  akin  to  the  existing  form  of  sanctuary  and 
preaching  service  will  be  almost  a  necessity  of  the 
religious  experience  of  the  individual  and  of  the 
extension  of  Christ's  power  in  the  world.  So  that  if 
it  is  the  case  that  in  the  minds  of  people  a  diminishing 
emphasis  is  being  laid  upon  sanctuary  service,  there 
is  that  in  the  situation  which  should  render  us,  not 
apprehensive,  but  disposed  to  search  out  the  grounds 
of  so  lamentable  a  tendency. 

It  need  not  be  said  that  this  situation  has  been 
made  matter  of  frequent  study  and  explained  in  a 


174  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

variety  of  ways  which,  however,  in  general,  do  not 
seem  to  me  to  reach  altogether  to  the  fundamental 
point  of  difficulty. 

The  claim  is  liberally  alleged  that  the  pressure 
which  is  laid  upon  all  classes  and  conditions  of  people 
by  the  urgencj'^  of  the  times  excuses  one  from  certain 
obligations  that  obtained  when  the  six  days  were  less 
filled  than  now  with  the  cares  and  burdens  of  secular 
life.  That  is  so  usual  a  way  of  stating  the  situation 
that  it  need  not  be  enlarged  upon,  except  to  say  that, 
if  the  sanctuary  and  its  services  be  to  any  degree 
efficient  in  stilling  the  distractions  of  the  mind,  and 
in  equipping  the  soul  for  the  warfare  of  life  and  in 
fortifying  it  against  life's  constant  temptations,  the 
severer  the  strain  to  which  secular  life  subjects  us, 
the  viore  essential  becomes  the  ministration  which  the 
sanctuary  has  to  offer. 

Somewhat  more  pertinent  and  striking  more  closely 
to  the  heart  of  the  situation,  is  the  reason  offered  for 
non-attendance  at  church  by  those  who,  upon  com- 
paring pulpit  deliverance  with  such  presentations  of 
truth  as  are  to  be  found  in  books,  papers  and  maga- 
zines, find  that  the  comparison  favors  the  latter 
rather  than  the  former,  and  that  literature  answers 
our  needs  quite  as  well  as  preaching,  while  involving 
less  of  expense  and  inconvenience. 

So  far  as  relates  to  the  question  of  literary  value, 


The  Sanctuary  and  Sanctuary  Service  175 

both  as  regards  the  matter  and  form  of  what  is 
printed,  the  pulpit  has  very  much  more  to  compete 
with  than  it  had  even  fifty  years  ago.  The  pew  was 
formerly  quite  dependent  upon  the  pulpit  for  the 
material  of  its  thinking.  The  parson  did  the  think- 
ing for  the  parish.  Only  the  small  minority  of  parish- 
ioners had  opinions  of  their  own.  Pastorates  not 
infrequently  extended  to  fifty  years,  and  at  their 
close  all  those  who  had  sat  under  the  preacher's 
instruction  had  become  his  larger  or  smaller  dupli- 
cates in  point  of  doctrine  and  practice. 

Literature  is  now  as  abundant  as  it  was  then  rare, 
and  as  attractive  as  it  was  then  forbidding.  Every- 
one, almost,  thinks  his  own  thoughts.  Even  the 
children  frame  a  philosophy  of  their  own  and  begin 
to  cherish  their  little  theological  heresies  before  they 
have  entered  their  teens.  How  many  there  are  who 
have  been  so  trained  in  the  art  of  thinking  as  to  be 
able  to  think  well  and  to  the  purpose,  is  a  question  by 
itself;  for  one  cannot  think  with  effect  without  having 
been  disciplined  to  it,  any  more  than  one  can  sing  w  ell 
or  paint  well  without  having  been  trained  to  it. 
Nevertheless,  minds  all  about  us  are  at  work,  either 
systematically  or  fantastically,  and  reading,  which 
might  be  called  thinking  with  a  cmtch, — leaning 
upon  some  one's  else  mind, — is  the  common  habit  of 
all  classes,  ages,  sexes  and  conditions. 


176  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

That,  then,  is  the  situation  which  the  pulpit  has 
at  present  to  face  as  compared  with  what  it  was  a 
half  century  ago ;  and  although  we  have  what  we  like 
to  call  an  educated  and  a  cultivated  ministry,  yet 
there  are  few,  if  anj'^,  congregations  in  which  there 
are  not  laymen  at  whose  feet  the  clergyman  could 
afford  to  sit  in  all  quietude  and  docility.  Not  the 
intellectual  ability,  the  orthodoxy,  not  even  the  piety 
of  the  pulpit  afford,  then,  sufficient  grounds  upon 
which  to  base  the  claims  of  sanctuary  service. 

Bearing  upon  our  matter  there  are  two  principles 
requiring  to  be  stated,  to  which,  when  fairly  set  forth, 
cordial  assent  will,  I  believe,  be  accorded. 

First.  Only  a  portion  of  the  results  deserving  to 
be  accomplished  by  the  service  of  the  sanctuary  is 
due  to  the  intellectual  ability  of  the  pulpit  or  the 
intellectual  appreciation  of  the  pew. 

The  charge  that  is  to  be  brought  against  the 
theology  in  which  some  of  the  older  ones  of  us  were 
reared,  or  rather,  perhaps,  against  the  mode  in  which 
it  used  to  be  presented  from  what  was  then  called 
"the  sacred  desk,"  was  not  that  it  was  too  strenuous 
in  its  pursuit  of  the  truth  or  too  emphatic  in  its 
enunciation  of  truth,  but  that  while  it  put  a  highly 
educational  strain  upon  the  mental  faculties  of  the 
hearers,  it  afforded  too  little  play  for  those  other 
energies   of   the   soul, — its   love,   its   sympathies,   its 


The  Sanctuary  and  Sanctuary  Service  177 

sweet  and  holy  confidences  in  the  goodness  and  shep- 
herding care  of  God, — energies  which  remain  inert 
so  long  as  the  atmosphere  is  one  of  cold  intellec- 
tuality, and  which  begin  to  show  signs  of  life  and 
movement  only  when  the  sharp  edges  of  truth  have 
been  mellowed  by  the  touch  of  a  warmer  impulse. 

One  Sabbath,  Dr.  WiUiam  Adams,  first  pastor  of 
the  Madison  Square  Church,  had  with  liim  in  the 
pulpit  a  Pennsylvania  divane,  who  preached  the  dis- 
course. At  its  completion  the  Philadelphian,  upon 
sitting  down,  turned  and  remarked  to  Dr  Adams, 
"That  is  what  I  call  the  very  bones  of  the  gospel." 
"Yes,"  gently  retorted  Dr.  Adams,  "but  we  like  a 
Kttle  flesh  on  ours." 

It  is  by  the  cultivation  of  sweet  Christian  senti- 
ment as  much  as  by  the  inculcation  of  strong  religious 
doctrine  that  the  sanctuary  accomplishes  its  mission. 
Judging  from  the  example  of  our  Lord's  dealings 
with  his  disciples,  it  seems  prudent  to  go  even  a  step 
farther,  and  to  claim  that  the  softening  of  the  heart 
and  the  quickening  of  sentiment  must  precede  the 
indoctrinating  of  the  mind.  People  do  not  commence 
putting  seed  into  the  ground  until  after  the  frost  is 
out  and  the  soil  has  been  so  far  warmed  as  to  give  to 
the  seed  a  loving  reception.  And  the  soul  works  in 
line  with  the  operations  of  nature. 

It    was    as    much    because    Christ    cultivated    the 


178  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

tenderness  of  his  disciples  as  because  he  stimulated 
their  understandings  that  he  was  able  to  lodge  in 
them  the  truths  of  the  gospel,  and  he  wrought  in  them 
gentleness  of  feeling  before  he  began  his  work  of 
seed-sowing. 

The  gospel  is  quite  as  much  an  expression  of  the 
heart  of  God  as  of  his  mind.  So  that  a  sanctuary 
ser'sdce,  in  order  to  be  true  to  the  spirit  of  the  gospel, 
must  move  primarily  in  an  atmosphere  of  feeling 
rather  than  exclusively  in  one  of  thought.  It  is,  or 
should  be,  a  nursery  for  the  growing  of  religious 
affections,  so  that  any  amount  of  keen  mentality  that 
the  preacher  may  possess,  or  any  amount  of  intel- 
lectual nutriment  that  his  congregation  may  secure 
from  outside  sources,  affect  in  no  wise  the  need  that 
people  are  under  of  entering  the  sanctuary  and  shar- 
ing in  its  service,  provided  its  spiritual  atmosphere 
be  of  a  temperature  to  develop  the  delicate  impulses 
of  religious  emotion,  affectionate  and  trustful  rever- 
ence toward  God  and  love  toward  man.  In  order  to 
a  winning  and  successful  service,  it  is  as  essential  to 
have  produced  a  mellow  spiritual  temperature  in 
order  that  men's  hearts  may  be  warm  as  it  is  to  have 
a  good  fire  kept  up  in  the  furnace  in  order  that  their 
feet  may  be  Avami. 

Hence  the  need  there  is  that  our  sanctuary  prayers 
should  move  in  the  region  of  the  sensibilities  of  our 


The  Sanctuary  and  Sanctuary  Service  179 

people,  and  that  the  holy  office  should  be  used  not  to 
the  end  of  indirectly  conveying  moral  lessons  to  the 
pew-holders  or  of  imparting  information  to  God,  but 
as  a  means  of  gathering  the  Great  Spirit  and  our  own 
smaller  spirits  within  the  bonds  of  reverent  and 
sympathetic  fellowship  and  companionship. 

I  have  no  love  for  and  very  little  respect  for  the 
aridity  and  frigidity  of  a  good  deal  of  existing  sanc- 
tuary service.  I  believe  in  introducing  just  as  much 
fonn  as  can  possibly  be  made  the  vehicle  of  spiritual 
influence.  People  love  it,  and  within  the  limits  just 
specified  the  more  of  it  the  better.  It  is  both  a  rest 
and  an  impulse.  I  have  experimented  with  the  matter 
for  thirty-one  j^ears.  In  '80  I  began  with  the  old- 
fashioned  three-hymned  service.  Even  the  introduc- 
tion of  the  Lord's  prayer  was  offensive  to  one  or  two 
members,  as  being  a  leaning  in  the  direction  of 
Papacy.  We  have  a  ritual  now  that  combines  the 
dignity  of  the  Presbyterian  cult  and  the  grace  of  the 
Episcopal.  The  old-fashioned  truth  is  preached  but 
the  bones  are  kept  well  covered.  Next  to  the  Holy 
Spirit  the  preacher's  main  stay  is  his  choir,  whose 
services  are  secured  not  at  all  with  a  view  to  giving 
us  a  Sunday  concert,  but  rather  and  exclusively  to  the 
end  of  touching  and  stimulating  those  hidden  foun- 
tains of  reverent  devotion  and  tender  sentiment 
toward  God  and  man  wliich  can  never  be  so  directly 


180  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

reached  or  so  gently  and  yet  powerfully  stimulated 
as  bv  music  when  rendered  bv  those  who  combine  the 
gift  of  song  with  the  spirit  of  worship.  There  is 
nothing  to  indicate  that  there  will  be  any  preaching 
in  heaven.  Music  is  the  only  art  that  is  enrolled 
among  the  attractions  of  the  celestial  world. 

In  this  great  matter  of  rendering  the  ser\'ices  of 
the  sanctuary  attractive,  the  second  point  to  which 
I  wish  to  advert  is  that  of  the  preacher  and  his  pulpit 
deliverances,  in  particular  the  peculiar  quahty  that 
ought  to  distinguish  those  deliverances  because  of  the 
unique  experience  by  which  it  is  to  be  assumed  that 
those  deliverances  will  be  inspired. 

John  the  Baptist,  in  his  singular  and  desolate 
wilderness  sanctuary,  was  able  to  draw  the  multitudes 
to  his  preaching  because  he  was  able  to  tell  them 
something  which  they  did  not  know,  something  which 
they  needed  and  were  interested  to  know,  and  some- 
thing which  he  was  able  to  state  to  them  with 
authority  and  as  from  a  source  from  which  they 
themselves  were  not  able  to  draw.  He  worked  in  the 
exercise  of  the  prophetic  office. 

The  prophet  is  not  so  much  the  man  who  foretells 
as  the  one  who  has  a  differing  experience  from  most, 
an  experience  which  carries  him  farther  into  the 
realitv  of  things  than  most  are  carried,  which  dis- 
entangles    him    from    the    complication    of    what    is 


The  Sanctuauy  and  Sanctuary  Service  181 

ordinary  and  confused,  and  qualifies  him  to  speak 
from  a  standpoint  so  far  raised  above  the  common  and 
perplexed  point  of  view  as  to  exhibit  facts  and  truths 
in  their  just  perspective,  and  moreover  to  do  it  with 
that  clear  and  unmistakable  consciousness  of  vision 
that  carries  with  it  its  own  certification. 

In  the  transfiguration  scene  the  disciples  for  the 
first  time  beheld  their  Lord  in  his  true  relations  to 
the  celestial  world.  Only  imagination  can  conceive 
the  effect  wrought  upon  them  by  this  dazzling  dis- 
closui-e  of  his  heavenly  connections,  or  the  distinct 
epoch  that  would  be  thereby  created  in  the  history 
of  their  belief  in  him.  Although  the  revelation  was 
comparatively  but  momentary,  yet  there  was  the 
revelation.  The  Lord  for  an  instant  stood  before 
them  in  the  manifest  light  of  God.  A  glory  that  was 
neither  from  land  nor  sea  had  touched  his  face  with 
a  complexion  that  betrayed  his  kinship  with  the 
Great  Spirit  above  and  liis  citizenship  in  regions  that 
were  far  abroad. 

And  the  meaning  of  the  scene  in  something  of  the 
immensity  of  its  import  entered  their  souls,  and 
recorded  itself  there  in  lines  that  were  ineffaceable. 
Whatever  the  scene  of  distress  and  humihation 
through  which  they  might  subsequently  see  him  pass, 
there  still  remained  in  them  indelibly  printed  the 
memory  of  the  day  when  they  had  seen  him  stand 


182  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

upon  the  Mount,  close  in  under  the  cover  of  the  sky, 
enveloped  with  a  splendor  which  nature  could  not 
explain  and  in  the  midst  of  companionship  whose 
belongings  were  in  the  great  years  and  in  the  realm 
supernal.  It  was  a  great  moment,  great  in  its  instant 
impression  upon  them,  great  in  its  indestructible 
hold  upon  them. 

What  it  signified  at  the  moment  to  the  three  disci- 
ples that  witnessed  it  and  what  it  continued  to  denote 
as  a  permanent  element  in  their  experience,  we  can 
easily  infer  from  the  language  subsequently  used  by 
one  of  them  who  wrote :  "For  we  have  not  followed 
cunningly  devised  fables,  when  we  made  known  unto 
you  the  power  and  coming  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
but  we  were  eye-witnesses  of  his  majesty.  For  he 
received  from  God  the  Father  honor  and  glory,  when 
there  came  such  a  voice  to  him  from  the  sublime  glory 
[that  is,  from  God],  This  is  my  beloved  Son,  in  whom 
I  am  well  pleased:  and  this  voice  which  came  from 
heaven  we  heard,  and  were  with  him  in  the  Holy 
Mount."  You  perceive  how  that  impression  had 
stayed  by,  how  it  had  worked  in  the  mind  of  him  who 
had  witnessed  the  great  transaction,  and  had  become 
a  fixed  factor  in  his  own  realization,  and  made  him 
forever  competent  to  speak  a  strong  word,  so  full  of 
conscious  truth  as  to  cut  a  broad  swath  of  irresistible 
persuasion  whenever  the  word  was  spoken.     It  was 


The  Sanctuary  and  Sanctuary  Service  183 

the  glimpse  that  the  Apostle  gained,  on  that  trans- 
figuration day,  of  a  profound  world  undei'lying, 
overlj-ing,  enveloping  the  common  shows  of  things, 
that  made  the  Apostle  great,  widening  him  a  little  to 
the  width  of  the  spiritual  universe  that  was  for  a 
moment  uncovered  to  him,  enabhng  him  to  interpret 
facts  in  all  their  high  and  brilliant  import  and  to 
assert  those  facts  with  an  assurance  begotten  of  a 
searching  experience. 

What  we  have  just  tried  to  state  is  a  necessary 
prerequisite  to  all  fine  living,  large  speaking  and 
great  working.  The  powerful  doers  of  the  Bible, 
old  and  new,  had  something  shown  to  them  before 
they  commenced  work.  The  cliieftains  of  events  may 
have  had  to  live  on  low  ground,  but  they  would  never 
have  been  able  to  become  chieftains  if  at  some  time 
something  had  not  come  into  their  eye  that  low 
ground  never  would  have  lain  near  enough  to  the 
sky  to  be  able  to  show  them.  Moses  had  been  doing 
small  things,  tending  sheep  and  other  paltry  business, 
too  pusillanimous  ever  to  have  gone  upon  the  record, 
for  eighty  years  before  the  vision  of  God  came  to  him 
in  the  flame  at  Horeb,  and  then  for  the  first  time  the 
tiiie  life  of  the  great  general,  lawgiver  and  states- 
man beo-an.  That  bush  introduced  Moses  to  the 
world  because  it  introduced  the  world  to  Moses,  the 
great  world  I  mean,  that  world  that  is  made  up  of 


18-t  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

eternal  meanings,  and  which  holds  in  its  vast 
embrace  this  small  globe  of  rock,  forest  and  ocean  as 
a  tiny  island  is  held  in  the  lap  of  the  sea. 

Whether  in  that  scene  at  Horeb  iMoses  heard  God's 
voice  is  not  so  important.  We  must  allow  a  good 
deal  of  margin  for  the  pictorial  tendencies  of  a 
picturesque  age.  There  is  no  harm  in  thinking  of 
some  olden  parts  of  the  early  Bible  as  being  picture- 
book — remembering  though  that  there  may  be  just 
as  much  truth  in  a  picture  as  in  a  paragraph,  perhaps 
more. 

But  whether  that  Horeb  chapter  is  prose,  poetry 
or  painting,  Moses  found  himself  at  the  frontier,  at 
the  point  where  the  lights  from  below  are  met  by 
the  lights  that  sift  in  from  the  other  way,  and  he 
began  then  to  be  IMoses.  And  the  Ught  sifting  in 
from  the  other  way  put  that  celestial  complexion 
upon  things  that  read  into  them  their  great  meanings, 
as  the  transfiguring  light  upon  the  Holy  Mount 
wrought  God's  complexion  upon  the  face  of  the 
man  Christ  Jesus  and  to  the  three  stricken  disciples 
revealed  the  man,  in  what  Peter  calls  his  majesty. 
It  is  much  to  see  things  in  their  majesty. 

Even  our  Lord,  as  it  would  seem,  never  stepped 
forth  upon  his  career  of  active  service  till  there  came 
to  him  at  the  Jordan  that  great  revelation,  that 
opening  of  the  sky  above  him,  in  whose  interpretative 


The  Sanctuary  and  Sanctuary  Service  185 

light  his  owTi  being  became  disclosed  to  hiin,  and  his 
relation  to  God  and  to  man  set  forth  under  a  trans- 
figuring illumination.  The  small  significance  of 
things  will  not  answer.  There  is  a  great  deal  of 
splendor  in  them  if  the  lights  are  arranged  in  such  a 
way  as  to  strike  them  from  above,  and  coax  out  their 
larger  import.  Even  pictures  that  seem  common 
develop  wonderfully  when  properly  placed  and  seen 
in  an  atmosphere  that  is  richly  luminous. 

St.  Paul's  real  life  commenced  with  seeing  what  he 
called  a  great  "light."  It  would  be  of  no  particular 
advantage  to  try  to  probe  the  mysteries  of  that 
event.  Excited  emotions  may  to  some  extent  have 
furnished  the  colors  in  which  he  portrayed  the  scene 
that  transpired  on  the  way  to  Damascus,  but  there 
was  in  some  way  and  at  that  time  a  great  uncovering 
to  his  eyes,  or  to  his  heart,  of  what  had  before  been 
concealed. 

Whether  it  was  that  his  powers  of  vision,  spiritual 
vision,  were  unnaturally  strengthened  or  that  by 
some  means  the  atmosphere,  in  which  the  activities 
of  mind  operate,  was  conveniently  cleansed  of  what- 
ever tends  to  impede  those  activities,  is  of  little 
importance.  But  it  is  sufficiently  evident  from  what 
he  himself  tells  us  of  the  event,  and  from  the  entirely 
new  tone  and  direction  communicated  to  his  life  by 
that  event,  that  altogether  a  new  world  was  at  that 


186  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

time  disclosed  to  him ;  not  that  things  were  changed, 
but  that  a  celestial  complexion  was  put  upon  them, 
a  heavenly  significance  communicated  to  them,  and 
they  stood  forth  before  him  transfigured  in  the  glow 
of  the  mystic  illumination. 

The  reports  preserved  to  us  of  such  experiences 
have  oftentimes  to  be  discounted,  but  that  will  have 
to  depend  mostly  upon  the  general  quality  and  struc- 
ture of  the  person  of  whom  the  experiences  are 
predicated.  That  Abraham  was  a  man  of  such  fiber 
and  proportions  as  to  be  able  to  dominate  religiously 
the  forty  centuries  that  have  intervened  between  his 
day  and  our  own  would  seem  to  be  rather  convinc- 
ing endorsement  of  his  claim  to  have  stood  at  one 
time  where  both  ground  and  sky  were  brightened  by 
the  ineffable  Presence,  and  where  even  the  long  track 
of  the  ages  to  come  lay  out  partly  disclosed  to  him 
under  the  transfiguring  light  that  fell  upon  that 
track  from  above. 

That  Moses  was  a  man  of  such  grasp  upon  the 
moral  foundation  of  things,  ha\ang  a  moral  intuition 
so  keen  in  perforating  the  very  tissue  of  character 
and  act  that  his  ethical  sj'stem  today,  after  so  long 
a  time,  still  lies  at  the  basis  of  our  own  moral  struc- 
ture of  duty  as  between  man  and  man,  and  man  and 
God, — all  of  this  creates  a  tremendous  presumption 
in  support  of  his  claim  that  he  wrought  not  alone  by 


The  Sanctuary  and  Sanctuary  Service  187 

the  light  of  a  candle  humanly  kindled ;  a  tremendous 
presumption  that  he  was  warranted  in  insisting  that 
his  ethical  code  was  a  quotation  from  the  mind  of 
God;  and  that  it  was  because  human  relations  of 
obligation  stood  out  before  his  eye  under  the  glow 
of  a  heavenly  transfigurement  that  he  was  able  to 
state  those  relations  in  a  way  that  should  be  true  to 
the  finest  conscience  of  the  finest  men  for  a  period 
of  3,500  years. 

IMen  who  can  do  that  have  got  to  be  beheved. 
Likewise  of  the  man  St.  Paul,  that  rugged  old  Apostle 
to  the  Gentiles.  Words  that  such  people  speak, 
claims  that  such  people  make,  will  have  to  be  taken 
at  their  face  value.  When  you  bethink  yourself  of  the 
fact  that  nineteen  centuries  of  strong  religious 
thinking  rest  down  complacently  upon  the  massive 
propositions  enunciated  by  St.  Paul,  it  is  silly  to  the 
point  of  imbecility  to  deny  the  vaUdity  of  a  light  so 
intense  as  to  singe  his  bodily  eyes  into  temporary 
blindness,  to  have  come,  as  he  tells  us  in  his  Corin- 
thian letter,  within  reach  of  utterances  incapable  of 
being  translated  into  terms  of  any  earthly  vocabu- 
lary. 

These  are  some  of  the  facts  of  our  holy  religion 
and  attested  by  the  testimony  of  men  who  have  been 
too  practical  in  all  their  dominance  of  historic  event, 
too  self-contained  in  all  their  administrative  life  to 


188  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

be  obnoxious  to  the  charge  of  either  insanity  or 
delusion.  You  may  not  have  seen  a  great  light  but 
St.  Paul  did,  or  nineteen  hundred  years  of  great 
doctrinal  thinking  are  the  mere  baseless  fabric  of  a 
dream.  You  may  not  have  seen  the  clouds  parted 
above  you  and  a  radiant  avenue  opened  before  you 
into  the  realm  celestial,  but  Jesus  did,  or  the  great 
Christian  era  with  all  of  Hght,  love  and  power  in  it 
that  we  call  Christian  is  an  unfounded  stupidity 
shared  in  by  milhons  of  what  purported  to  be  intelh- 
gent  souls,  but  who  were  all  of  them  the  dupes  of  a 
silly  fancy  when  they  lived  and  the  victims  of  a  crazy 
delusion  when  they  died. 

The  declarations  of  men  like  Paul,  Jesus,  Moses 
and  Abraham,  who  have  marshaled  the  centuries  by 
the  power  of  their  thought  and  life,  are  not  declara- 
tions that  you  can  finger  and  sort  over  and  blot  out  at 
the  impulse  of  a  jejune  cynicism.  It  is  not  credulity 
to  bank  on  the  utterances  of  such  men ;  it  is  incredu- 
lity not  to  bank  on  them.  The  average  man  may  not 
have  had  their  experiences,  but  what  is  the  average 
man  that  he  presumes  to  blue-pencil  the  unequivocal 
declarations  of  men  who  have  moved  as  giants  in  the 
midst  of  the  years,  masters  of  events  and  creators  of 
destiny  ? 

And  so  we  come  back  to  it  that  it  was  the  glimpse 
of  great  things,  touches  of  transfiguration,  beholden 


The  Sanctuary  and  Sakctuary  Service  189 

by  men  who  once  in  a  while  stood  at  the  frontier  where 
the  light  from  tlie  ground  was  met  by  the  light  that 
beamed  from  on  high,  that  was  the  secret  of  their 
long  thinking  and  great  working. 

It  is  much  to  stand  down  in  the  valley  of  a  beauti- 
ful landscape  and  to  imagine  the  distant  course  of 
the  rivers  and  to  fancy  the  miles  of  stimulating 
prospect  that  must  lie  out,  an  easy  picture  to  the 
eye  of  one  who  looks  upon  it  from  the  heights.  But 
it  is  a  distinct  thing  to  stand  upon  those  heights,  to 
live  in  the  companionship  of  the  lofty  places  of  the 
earth  and  follow  with  an  easy  vision  the  long  hues  of 
the  rivers  that  like  glistening  threads  of  silver  wind 
in  and  out  among  the  hills. 

Such  transfigurement  is  fraught  with  unspeakable 
stimulus,  even  when  it  is  merely  mountains  and 
forests  that  are  interpreted  by  the  hght  that  falls 
upon  them  from  a  superior  altitude.  And  how  much 
more  when  it  is  the  features  of  a  moral  and  spiritual 
landscape  that  are  passing  under  review — when  it  is 
duties  not  things,  men  and  not  rocks,  processes  of 
history  and  not  geography,  souls  and  the  life  and 
destinies  of  souls  and  not  material  impersonalities 
that  are  to  be  interpreted  and  valued  in  the  trans- 
fimirincf  lig-ht  that  cometh  from  above. 

Prophets  require  no  credentials,  and  are  always  in 
demand.     When  Ehjah   confronted  Ahab   and  pre- 


190  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

faced  his  declaration  to  him  with  the  words,  "As  the 
Lord  God  of  Israel  liveth,  before  whom  I  stand," 
Ahab  asked  no  questions,  entered  into  no  argument, 
attempted  no  disproof  of  the  authority  with  which 
Elijah  spoke.  The  character  with  which  a  preacher 
is  popularly  credited  is  that  he  is  a  layman  who  has 
been  instructed  along  theological  lines.  That  does 
not  make  a  prophet  of  him.  Second-hand  knowledge 
does  not  count — not  in  the  great  things  of  life. 

The  only  things  that  persuade  are  the  tilings  that 
come  from  the  heart  that  knows.  The  words  that 
came  from  Moses  have  been  the  foundation  of  civiH- 
zation  for  three  millenniums  and  a  half,  and  he  did 
not  secure  them  by  probing  the  wisdom  of  Egypt  or 
by  digging  in  the  sands  of  the  wilderness.  He  swayed 
the  wild  men  that  he  brought  with  him  out  of  Egypt 
because  his  conferences  were  with  the  powers  above, 
whom  they  but  imperfectly  knew,  but  whom  they 
knew  that  he  knew.  They  felt  in  him  the  authenticity 
of  the  word  that  he  brought.  They  appreciated  in 
his  utterances  the  flavor  of  the  thunder-resounding 
and  the  lightning-stricken  mountain  down  out  of 
which  he  brought  his  message.  They  never  disputed 
the  Decalogue.  They  accepted  it  because  they 
accepted  him,  and  because  they  believed  that  he  had 
been  up  where  things  of  that  kind  grow. 

"This  is  life  eternal  that  they  might  know  thee,  O 


The  Sanctuary  and  Sanctuary  Service  191 

God,  and  Jesus  Christ  whom  thou  hast  sent,"  and 
such  a  lesson  as  that  surely  is  one  which  has  no  final 
chapter.  How  far  along  in  the  series  of  its  chapters 
men  and  women,  who  are  necessarily  burdened  and 
stricken  with  the  cares  and  the  exhausting  business 
of  life,  ought  to  advance,  is  something  for  each  to 
determine  for  himself;  but  the  preacher  is  bound  by 
the  obligations  of  his  prophetic  office  to  have  stepped 
far  enough  on  in  advance  of  his  people  to  tell  them 
of  things  which  they  have  not  yet  seen,  and  so,  little 
by  little,  to  entice  their  vision  toward  the  prospect 
always  opening  itself  out  more  and  more  clearly  to  us 
as  we  go  on. 

The  secret  of  the  power  and  work  of  St.  Paul  is 
expressed  in  his  words,  "Neither  did  I  receive  the 
gospel  from  man,  nor  was  I  taught  it,  but  it  came 
to  me  through  revelation  of  Jesus  Christ."  In  that, 
too,  lies  the  secret  of  his  fascination  and  his  ability 
to  draw  human  thought  to  him  and  to  compel  its 
confidence  in  him. 

I  am  afraid  that  we  have  read  his  letters  so  much 
or  that  we  read  them  with  so  little  insight  into  their 
contents,  as  to  fail  of  feeling  how  alive  every  sentence 
of  his  is  with  his  own  personal  experience.  There  is 
no  sufrfrestion  of  hearsav  about  them.  He  is  felt  to 
be  speaking  with  authority,  and  such  authoritative- 
ness  the  world  believes  in  and  gathers  to  it. 


192  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

He  was  himself  in  all  that  he  says.  If  it  is  love 
that  he  is  talking  about,  we  know  that  the  whole 
track  of  his  thought  is  Ut  up  with  the  love  wheremth 
he  himself  loves.  He  never  has  to  quote.  If  he 
touches  upon  the  realities  of  the  world  invisible,  we 
feel  that  at  the  very  moment,  when  he  was  writing, 
his  own  eye  was  wide  open  to  the  realities  of  that 
world  and  sensitively  and  almost  painfully  filled  with 
them.  We  know  that  he  is  not  doing  into  words  of  his 
own  some  report  of  unseen  realities  that  another  has 
made  over  to  him. 

His  own  heart  distinctly  touched  the  object  it 
described,  the  truth  it  relates.  There  is  no  sugges- 
tion of  inference  in  what  he  declares.  He  does  not 
say  that  this  is  true — major  premise — and  that  is 
true — minor  premise — therefore  sometliing  else  is 
true.  There  are  with  him  no  "therefores."  Realities 
stand  out  to  him  in  their  own  light.  There  was 
nothing  second-hand  about  his  dehverances,  so  that 
the  vitahty  of  them  has  struck  into  the  hearts  of 
people  and  dominated  religious  thought  for  almost 
a  score  of  centuries.  People  have  eyes  for  what  is 
direct  and  ears  for  what  is  original.      / 

In  the  clause  just  quoted,  he  tells  liis  Galatian 
readers  that  the  gospel  he  has  been  preaching  to 
them  is  not  something  that  he  picked  up  at  school 
and  then  went  upon  the  platfonn  with  it,  or  into  the 


The  Sanctuary  and  Sanctuary  Service  193 

pulpit  witli  it.  He  tells  them  that  liis  ability  to 
address  to  them  long  discourses  is  not  due  to  any 
long  memory  of  his,  or  to  the  gospel  material  w^th 
which  that  memory  of  his  had  been  crammed.  People 
are  not  slow  to  appreciate  the  magnitude  of  the  work 
he  did  for  the  world,  and  for  the  centuries,  but  are 
not  closely  attending  to  it  that  it  is  what  he  is  here 
saying  about  himself  that  made  him  able  to  do  it. 

I  meet  with  students  who  are  looking  forward  to 
the  Christian  ministry,  and  who  are  deeply  agitated 
over  the  question  as  to  where  they  shall  take  their 
preliminary  course,  and  under  what  set  of  instructors 
they  shall  be  taught  concerning  Christ  and  his 
gospel. 

It  is  not  my  thought  that  we  should  urge  them  to 
keep  away  from  such  instruction,  but  it  is  clear  that 
we  ought  to  remind  them  that  there  are  things  that 
never  can  be  learned  by  such  means,  that  the  things 
that  make  out  almost  the  whole  of  a  man's  true  equip- 
ment for  the  Christian  ministry  cannot  be  learned  by 
such  means,  and  that  St.  Paul,  the  consummate 
preacher  of  the  Christian  era,  not  only  never 
depended  upon  such  opportunities,  but  wanted  it 
definitely  understood  that  he  never  did. 

He  could  have  attended  a  school  of  the  prophets 
and  learned  a  great  deal  about  the  Lord,  but  to  know 
a  great  deal  about  the  Lord  is  one  thing,  and  to  know 


194  The  Pulpit  and  the  Pew 

the  Lord  is  a  different  thing.  We  might  go  into  a 
cave  lit  with  a  tallow  candle,  and  spend  forty  years 
fathoming  profound  treatises  upon  the  sun  and  stars, 
and  yet  in  all  those  years  gain  less  that  would  make 
us  stirring  expositors  of  the  splendors  of  the  firma- 
ment than  one  moment's  contemplation  of  the  rising 
sun  or  of  the  winter  constellations.  People  always 
believe  in  the  man  "that  has  been  there"  and  Mall 
follow  him  even  into  the  wilderness.  It  is  difficult  to 
be  greatly  moved  by  the  deliverances  of  a  mocking 
bird. 

Therein  then  lies  the  power  of  the  pulpit,  in  the 
ungrazed  pastures  of  spiritual  and  heavenly  truth 
into  which  the  prophet-shepherd,  going  on  before, 
leads  his  flocks.  There  is  a  quantit}^  of  unpardonable 
nonsense  perpetrated  upon  the  question  why  the 
masses  do  not  throng  the  churches.  It  is  not  the  fault 
of  the  masses.  People  \sall  fill  the  churches  as  fast 
as  God  fills  the  ministers. 

If  it  be  the  case  that  there  is  decay  in  attendance 
upon  sanctuary  service,  it  is  because  there  is  decay 
in  the  exercise  of  the  prophetic  function  of  the  pulpit, 
and  because  the  shepherd  moves  in  the  midst  of  the 
sheep  instead  of  going  before  them  and  leading  them 
forth  into  uncropped  fields.  Moses  could  lead  his 
people  because  of  the  region  of  higher  Kght  in  wliich 
he  walked,  and  which  came  to  him  first  in  the  flames  of 


The  Sanctuary  and  Sanctuary  Service  195 

the  Burning  Bush.  John  the  Baptist  could  stir  the 
heart  of  Jcinisalem  and  of  all  Judea,  because  his  own 
ear  was  tuned  to  disclosures  which  they  uncon- 
sciously had  wanted  to  know,  but  which  they  had  been 
either  too  busy  or  insufficiently  sensitive  to  discover. 
In  the  iVIount  of  Transfiguration  the  three  disciples 
had  uncovered  to  them  a  mysterious  world  that  lay 
out  of  reach  of  ordinary  vision,  but  a  world  whose 
spirit  and  power  were  a  strange  but  enticing  element 
in  all  the  message  which  they  afterward  delivered  to 
the  people.  The  light  which  flashed  upon  St.  Paul 
when  he  was  on  the  way  to  Damascus  never  faded  out 
of  the  eye  of  the  old  Prophet-Apostle,  and  somewhat 
of  the  touch  and  caress  of  that  light  came  into  the 
experience  of  those  who  afterward  waited  upon  his 
word. 

These  are  all  of  them  Scripture  examples  of  a  per- 
manent truth.  The  secret  of  pulpit  power  and  the 
secret  of  sanctuary  attractiveness  must  always  remain 
what  it  was  in  the  days  of  the  old  prophets  and 
apostles,  that  it  is  a  place  where  the  souls  of  the 
people  have  their  vision  uncovered  to  an  always  newer 
and  fresher  prospect  of  the  great  things  of  life  and 
God.  People  will  always  gather  under  a  cloud  and 
look  up,  if  only  there  be  a  rift  in  that  cloud  allowing 
a  little  farther  entrance  into  the  light  celestial. 


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